How have careers changed? An investigation of

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JMP 30,1

How have careers changed? An investigation of changing career patterns across four generations

8 Received 15 October 2013 Revised 14 January 2014 4 April 2014 Accepted 6 June 2014

Sean T. Lyons Department of Management, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada

Linda Schweitzer Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, and

Eddy S.W. Ng Rowe School of Business, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada Abstract Purpose – Popular literature argues that successive generations are experiencing more job changes and changes of employer. The “new careers” literature also proposes that career mobility patterns are becoming more diverse as people engage in more downward and lateral job changes and changes of occupation. The purpose of this paper is to test these assertions by comparing the career mobility patterns across four generations of workers. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed the career mobility patterns of four generations of Canadian professionals (n ¼ 2,555): Matures (born prior to 1946); Baby Boomers (1946-1964); Generation Xers (1965-1979) and Millennials (1980 or later). Job mobility, organizational mobility and the direction of job moves were compared across groups through analysis of variance. Findings – Significant differences were observed in job mobility and organizational mobility of the various generations, with younger generations being more mobile. However, despite significant environmental shifts, the diversity of career patterns has not undergone a significant shift from generation to generation. Originality/value – This is the first quantitative study to examine shifting career mobility patterns across all four generations in today’s workplace. The authors extend previous research on generational differences in job mobility by using novel measures of career mobility that are more precise than extant measures. Keywords Generation Y, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, Career mobility Paper type Research paper

Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 30 No. 1, 2015 pp. 8-21 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0268-3946 DOI 10.1108/JMP-07-2014-0210

Introduction In recent decades, successive generations of workers have witnessed economic and social changes that are altering the traditional psychological contract: employers no longer provide long-term employment guarantees; opportunities for internal advancement have been curtailed by downsizing; work-life balance is a concern as the proportion of dual-career families increases, the encumbrance of work into people’s non-working hours continues to grow, and individuals are increasingly becoming responsible for their own professional and technological development (Baruch and Bozionelos, 2011). Moses (1997) argued that successive generations have adapted to the changing labor market by accepting more non-traditional work arrangements (e.g. temporary and part-time work and multiple jobs), replacing a linear, upward “career ladder” perspective with a “chutes and ladders” model involving a mixture of upward, lateral and downward moves, and This study was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors wish to thank Lisa Kuron for her invaluable work on this research.

enacting “serial careers,” involving numerous changes of occupation. The careers literature has echoed the notion of a shift away from stable, upward, linear career paths motivated by loyalty and stability, toward dynamic, multi-directional and boundaryless career paths motivated by the pursuit of individualistic goals and values (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996; Baruch, 2004). Together, the generational and careers literatures suggest that the careers of successive generations should show increasing evidence of “new” career patterns, yet there has been surprisingly little research investigating this purported demise of “traditional careers” (Dries and Verbruggen, 2012; Inkson et al., 2012). This study applies a generational perspective to the study of shifting career patterns by comparing the career mobility patterns of four generations. We contribute to the careers literature by examining whether individual career patterns have shifted away from traditional linear, upward careers toward “boundaryless” multi-directional careers. Although previous studies have addressed this question with macro-economic data (e.g. Jacoby, 1999; Kim, 2013; Rodrigues and Guest, 2010), the present study adds to the small body of empirical research that examines the career patterns of individuals as they are actually enacted, addressing Inkson et al.’s (2012, p. 330) call for “more quantitative studies that track the objective movements of career actors and the boundaries they cross.” We also contribute to the generational literature by investigating the ways in which different generations have faced unique career environments and responded differently in their career patterns. Although previous research has examined qualitative generational differences in career mobility (Lyons et al., 2012b), and job mobility rates among generations (Becton et al., 2014; Lyons et al., 2012a), the present study is the first quantitative investigation of changing career patterns of mobility among all four generations of workers inhabiting today’s labor force. We therefore respond to Twenge’s (2010) call for more breadth in the range of generational differences examined. A greater understanding of the evolution of career patterns is useful to individuals, employers, educators and policy makers as it helps situate modern careers within the broader evolution of career patterns over time. The shift from traditional to new careers Changing generational norms have coincided with a purported shift away from traditional organizational careers to a “new career” model characterized by increased individual agency, flexibility of career paths and greater mobility across career boundaries such as job and organization (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996). The traditional view of careers is predicated on the ideal of linear upward progression from job to job within a single organization with increasing status, responsibility and pay (Baruch, 2004; Hall and Mirvis, 1996; Super, 1980). This “corporate” or “organizational” view, which predominated career theory and research throughout much of the twentieth century (Baruch and Bozionelos, 2011), saw the employer as the provider of stability and opportunities in exchange for the individual’s effort and long-term commitment (Capelli, 1999). Work processes were organized according to a strict division of labor, and career paths were designed to reward employee loyalty with upward mobility in terms of income and status (Chudzikowski, 2012). In recent decades, career researchers have echoed the notion that globalization, technological advances, increased workforce diversity, emphasis on knowledge work, outsourcing and the contingent workforce, have rendered the traditional career pattern outmoded (Burke and Ng, 2006; Sullivan and Baruch, 2009). As organizations became flatter and opened their boundaries to maintain flexibility in the new economy, there

Career patterns across four generations 9

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has been less opportunity for individuals to engage in long-term upwardly mobile careers within a single organization (Baruch and Bozionelos, 2011). Employees who previously enjoyed long-term employment in exchange for their loyalties are now expected to acquire experience and competencies to improve their employability in exchange for short-term commitment of effort (Baruch, 2004; Capelli, 1999; Moses, 1997). Careers are said to have become boundaryless (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996) both in terms of mindset and physical mobility across organizations or professions (Sullivan and Arthur, 2006). This requires portable competencies that span multiple organizations, personal identification with meaningful work, on-the-job action learning, the development of strong social networks and individual responsibility for career management (Sullivan, 1999). A central tenet of the new career perspective is that modern careers engender much more mobility than was those of the past (Chudzikowski, 2012). Feldman and Ng (2007) defined career mobility as incorporating job changes (i.e. changes of work responsibilities, hierarchical level or title within an organization), organization changes (i.e. changes in one’s employer) and occupation changes (i.e. changes that require fundamentally new skills, routines, work environments, training, education or vocational preparation). Ng et al. (2007) noted that job mobility can be further characterized in terms of “status” changes; being upward, downward or lateral in terms of status, esteem, responsibilities, and financial rewards. The careers literature tends to accept that high career mobility has become the “new normal” (Inkson et al., 2012), and that this is desirable (Chudzikowski, 2012). However, the actual prevalence of this career form in today’s workforce is still very much a matter of debate (Inkson et al., 2012; Sullivan and Baruch, 2009). Empirical investigation of this issue has been limited. Jacoby (1999) analyzed a variety of economic data and concluded that, despite a shift toward increased individual responsibility for career management and individual assumption of risk, the traditional employer-employee relationship remains the norm. Similarly, Rodrigues and Guest (2010) examined economic data from several countries and found minimal change in job tenure throughout the 1990s and 2000s. On the other hand, Kim (2013) found evidence that organizational mobility increased in the USA throughout the 1990s and early 2000s in a wide range of occupations. These studies provide an average picture of mobility in the labor force, but their reliance on macro-economic data makes them susceptible to the ecological fallacy (Freedman, 2001); increased mobility among younger workers might be “averaged out” by lower mobility among older workers. Unfortunately, we know relatively little about the degree of change in individual career patterns (Inkson et al., 2012). Generational cohorts and shifting careers A critical challenge of investigating generational differences, particularly in cross-sectional studies, is the confounding influences of maturation (i.e. age effect) and generational cohort (i.e. birth year effect). Although researchers have argued that it is important to differentiate the individual effects of age and generation (e.g. Twenge, 2010), others have argued that it is important to examine these effects concomitantly (e.g. Lyons and Kuron, 2013). The theory of generations suggests that the trends outlined above would affect members of the various generations differently because they were at different career and life stages when these changes took place (Howe and Strauss, 2007). A longitudinal study of the various generations across their respective career stages is the ideal methodology for comparing their career patterns across both

age and generation (Lyons and Kuron, 2013). Given the logistical barriers to such a method, we examine the careers of each generation to date within the historical context in which they were enacted. Twenge (2010) noted that many of the longitudinal findings regarding generational differences show linear patterns, suggesting that generations are not idiosyncratic demographic groups, but are manifestations of progressive social changes. We therefore proceed from the assumption that generational shifts in career patterns are part of a larger trajectory manifested in the choices of each successive generation. The Mature generation (born prior to 1946) entered the workforce in the post-war period, benefitting from an era of prolonged economic growth. Because they were members of a relatively small cohort in a time of economic expansion, the opportunities for promotion were abundant (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002). Moses (1997) argued that the Matures were dedicated to long-term employment within single organizations, worked hard and remained loyal to their employers with the expectation of promotion and job security. Matures typically worked to accrue tenure in their organizations as they strove to build legacies for themselves (Kupperschmidt, 2000; Lancaster and Stillman, 2002). Two studies provide evidence of differences in the career patterns of Matures relative to other generations. Chudzikowski (2012) studied the early career transitions (i.e. first 15 years of one’s career) of Austrian business school graduates from 1970 (corresponding to Matures in the North American context) and from 1990 (Boomers). Her analyses showed that 1990 graduates changed jobs and employers more frequently, experienced more downward and lateral career moves and were more apt to simultaneously cross multiple-boundaries (i.e. hierarchical levels, organizations, functional areas) than 1970 graduates. Lyons et al. (2012b) used in-depth interviews to gather career mobility information from four generations of Canadian workers (i.e. Matures, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and Millennials) throughout five-year career stages and found that Matures showed a pattern of lower job and organizational mobility than younger generations as well as less upward, lateral, downward and occupational transitions, but a small sample size made the differences statistically non-significant. We therefore surmise that the career patterns of Matures exemplify the traditional pattern of upward movement and low organizational mobility: H1a. Matures will have lower job mobility than all other generations. H1b. Matures will have lower organizational mobility than all other generations. H1c. The career mobility pattern of the Matures will show a greater proportion of upward movement relative to all other generations. Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), benefited from the post-war economy, and had favorable employment conditions in their early careers, including an expanding post-war economy and low unemployment rates (Moses, 1997). Boomers worked intently toward building “stellar careers” that reflected their privileged place in history (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002). However, the Boomers’ later career stages were more chaotic. The size of their birth cohort created intense competition for promotions at higher hierarchical levels, causing many to hit career plateaus earlier than previous generations and forcing them to change employers in order to advance (Kupperschmidt, 2000). Also, recessions in the early 1980s and 1990s and corporate down-sizing in the


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interceding years caused Boomers to become more active in their career management than previous generations (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002). Many had to change jobs, organizations, locations and even occupations as they dealt with economic uncertainty (Capelli, 1999; Lancaster and Stillman, 2002; Moses, 1997). Although they were well-educated relative to previous generations, Boomers faced the prospect of obsolescence by mid-career as new technologies rendered their skills and work experience outdated (Moses, 1997). In their qualitative study, Lyons et al. (2012b) found that Boomers had lower levels of job mobility than Generation Xers and Millennials, particularly throughout ages 25-44, although the small sample size made differences statistically non-significant. Another recent study of job applicants to two US hospitals found that Baby Boomers reported significantly fewer jobs in the five years prior to applying than did Generation Xers and Millennials, and they had spent a significantly longer time in one job than did Generation Xers and Millennials (Becton et al., 2014). On this basis, we posit that the career patterns of Baby Boomers are more diverse than those of the Matures, demonstrating more organizational mobility, lateral and downward career moves and changes of career track, but still displaying a general pattern of lower mobility and upward movement in terms of status and responsibility relative to subsequent generations: H2a. Boomers will have lower job mobility than Generation Xers and Millennials. H2b. Boomers will have lower organizational mobility than Generation Xers and Millennials. H2c. The career mobility pattern of the Boomers will show a greater proportion of upward movement relative to Generation Xers and Millennials. By the early 1980s, when the first of the Generation Xers (born between 1964 and 1979) entered the labor force, unemployment rates were almost double those faced by young Boomers two decades earlier (Gower, 1992), and the labor market was saturated with Boomers displaced by recession and downsizing (Moses, 1997). Generation Xers also faced increasing “credentialism” as the rate of post-secondary education increased (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002; Moses, 1997). They entered the labor force at the advent of the “post-corporate-career,” and therefore focussed more on their employability than on advancing within corporate hierarchies (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002; Moses, 1997). This generation has garnered a reputation as “job-hoppers” who change jobs and employers frequently in order to gain new skills to pursue opportunities, even if they are lateral moves (Kupperschmidt, 2000; Lancaster and Stillman, 2002). Lyons et al.’s (2012b) qualitative data revealed that Xers had more job and organizational mobility than previous generations, particularly from ages 25 to 44, and a general pattern of more upward, downward, lateral and occupational career transitions. As the hypotheses above suggest, we expect Generation Xers to have more job and organizational mobility than previous generations, particularly at a younger age, and to have greater diversity in the direction of their career movements than previous generations. The millennial generation (born after 1980) began entering their careers in the late-1990s and the 2000s, has (until recently) been the beneficiary of the lowest unemployment rates since the late-1970s (Canada Employment Insurance Commission (CEIC), 2010).

However, they are entering a labor market that is highly competitive, with an increasing proportion of workers holding post-secondary degrees. Although the Millennials are relatively new to the labor market, commentators surmise that they are highly mobile, expect great change and variety in their job assignments (Lancaster and Stillman, 2002), and are impatient in terms of their rate of advancement (Ng et al., 2010). They are also said to emphasize work-life balance and make career decisions that favor lifestyle and leisure over upward career progression (Ng et al., 2010; Twenge et al., 2010). Lyons et al.’s (2012b) qualitative data showed that Millennials had the highest levels of job and organizational mobility of any generation and had a lower proportion of their overall career moves in an upward direction and more in lateral, downward and occupational transitions than previous generations. Becton et al.’s (2014) study of job applicants found that Millennials held more jobs in the five years prior than did Gen Xers and also worked less time in their longest held job. We therefore expect to see greater mobility and diversity in the career patterns of Millennials relative to Xers: H3a. Xers will have lower job mobility than Millennials. H3b. Xers will have lower organizational mobility than Millennials. H3c. The career mobility pattern of the Xers will show a greater proportion of upward movement relative to Millennials. Method Participants The participants in the study were 2,555 employed or retired managers and professionals from across Canada. This is a subsample of a larger data set used in Lyons et al.’s (2012a) study, which documented shifting career attitudes, experiences and outcomes across the four generations. Student respondents are excluded from the present study, given their student employment histories, to avoid confounding the analyses. Because participation was open and anonymous (with measures to prevent multiple responses from the same individual), it is impossible to generate a valid response rate. The sample should therefore be viewed as a convenience sample, rather than a random population sample. Participants were classified into generations on the basis of the following birth years: Matures (n ¼ 300, 11.7 percent), born prior to 1945 (Foot and Stoffman, 1998); Boomers (n ¼ 901, 35.5 percent), born between 1945 and 1964 (Smola and Sutton, 2002); Generation Xers (n ¼ 900, 35.2 percent), born between 1965 and 1979 (Smola and Sutton, 2002) and Millennials (n ¼ 454, 17.8 percent), born in 1980 or later (Howe and Strauss, 2007; Lancaster and Stillman, 2002). The sample was evenly split for gender (49.5 percent male and 50.5 percent female). As expected, given the managerial and professional career background of the respondents, they were well-educated relative to the general population. Measures Job mobility. Respondents indicated the number of jobs they have held to date, including multiple jobs with the same employer, beginning with their first “career” position. Subtracting 1 from the total number of jobs (to account for one’s first job) gave us the individual’s number of job changes. This adjustment is important, because it more accurately reflects the construct of mobility than does a simple count of jobs held (cf. Lyons et al., 2012a, where number of jobs was compared). Although this adjustment may have less impact on older generations, it has the potential to provide significant


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upward bias for the Millennials who may have held a relatively low number of jobs. Because job mobility is cumulative, it is inappropriate to compare the number of job changes of respondents from different generational cohorts, who are at different stages in their careers. Thus, it is more meaningful to compare job change rates across cohorts. In order to standardize job mobility across respondents with different lengths of career, we asked respondents to indicate how many years they had been working since the start of their first career job (other than part-time student jobs) and divided the number of job changes by the number of years worked to calculate the number of job changes per year. Organizational mobility. Respondents indicated the number of organizations by which they have been employed to date, starting with their first career job. Organizational changes per year were calculated using the methods described above. Upward career moves. Respondents were asked “How many of your job changes have been upward moves in terms of pay, status, or responsibilities?” We calculated the number of upward moves per year using the methods described above. We also calculated the proportion of job moves that were upward in direction (i.e. upward percentage) by dividing the number of upward moves by their total number of job changes. Downward career moves. Respondents were asked “How many of your job changes have been downward moves in terms of pay, status or responsibilities?” We used calculations similar to those for upward career moves to calculate the number of downward moves per year and downward percentage. Lateral career moves. Respondents were asked “How many of your job changes have been lateral moves in terms of pay, status or responsibilities?” As above, we calculated the number of lateral moves per year and lateral percentage. Changes of career track. Respondents were asked “How many times have you made a major change of occupation which took your career in a different direction?” We again calculated the number of career track changes per year and career track change percentage using the methods described above. In addition to our hypothesized differences, we compared the generations on the proportion of job moves that also involved organizational change. We therefore calculated a mobility index; the number of employers for which one has worked, divided by the number of job changes one has held. The closer it is to 1.0 the greater the proportion of one’s job changes also involved changes of employer, rather than internal organizational job changes. Furthermore, because observed differences in job and organizational mobility may be attributable to involuntary job loss, we asked respondents to indicate the number of times that they had been “involuntarily unemployed (i.e. laid off, company closed, couldn’t find work, etc.” This was normalized by dividing by the number of jobs each participant had held. Results The descriptive statistics and correlations among the study variables are reported in Table I. To assess differences in job mobility among the four generational cohorts (H1a-H3a), we used ANOVAs with the number of job changes per year as the dependent variable and generational cohort as the independent variable, with post-hoc t-tests using the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons among generations. Table II shows a comparison of the four generational cohorts on the various types of career moves. Significant inter-generational differences were observed in the number of job changes per year (F[3, 2,472] ¼ 79.36, p o 0.001). Pairwise comparisons revealed that H1a was not supported as Matures did not differ significantly from Boomers. H2a

was fully supported, as Boomers had significantly fewer job changes per year than Xers and Millennials. H3a was also supported, as Xers had significantly fewer job changes per year than Millennials. We tested for inter-generational differences in organizational mobility (H1b-H3b), in two ways. First, we compared the number of organizational changes per year for each generation. As seen in Table II, the ANOVA revealed a significant difference among the generations in organizational changes per year (F[3, 2,497] ¼ 80.55, p o 0.001). Post-hoc tests showed that H1b was not supported, as Matures and Boomers did not differ significantly in the number of organizational changes per year. H2b was fully supported and Boomers had fewer changes of employer per year than either Xers or Millennials. H3b was supported, as Xers had fewer changes of

Mean 1 Generation 2 Job changes/year 3 Org. changes/year 4 Upward moves/year 5 Downward moves/year 6 Lateral moves/year 7 Changes of track/year Notes: *p o0.05 (two-tailed);

SD

1

– – 0.64 1.12 −0.28** 0.46 0.84 −0.28** 0.28 0.46 −0.28** 0.09 0.30 −0.16** 0.16 0.46 −0.17** 0.12 0.31 −0.21** **p o0.01 (two-tailed)

2

3

4

5

6

0.69** 0.70** 0.69** 0.76** 0.78**

0.52** 0.40** 0.60** 0.47**

0.28** 0.25** 0.40**

0.40** 0.52**

0.50**

Mature Boomer Gen X Millennial Mean Mean Mean Mean

ANOVA F Sig.

Job changes/year 0.28a 0.39a 0.71b 1.28c Organization changes /year 0.17a 0.29a 0.48b 0.95c Involuntary mobility rate 0.10a 0.12a 0.17b 0.16b Mobility index (total organizationl changes/total job changes) 0.50a,b 0.53a 0.50b 0.49b Upward moves Number of upward career moves 5.25a 3.94b 2.83c 2.24d Number of upward career moves/year 0.17a 0.17a 0.30b 0.57c a b b Upward percent 0.60 0.52 0.53 0.54b Downward moves Number of downward career moves 0.56a,b 0.84a 0.67a,b 0.52b Number of downward career moves/year 0.03a 0.05a 0.10b 0.17c Downward percent 0.06a 0.09b 0.09b 0.09b Lateral moves Number of lateral career moves 1.38a,b 1.98a 1.53b 1.02c Number of lateral career moves/year 0.04a 0.10a 0.19b 0.29c a b b,c Lateral percent 0.16 0.24 0.23 0.20a,c Changes of career track Number of career track changes 1.33a 1.17a 0.95b 0.88b a a b Number of career track changes /year 0.05 0.06 0.13 0.26c Changes of track percent 0.20a 0.17a 0.18a 0.20a Notes: n ¼ 2,555. Means scores in the same row not sharing the same superscript singnificantly different ( p o0.05)

79.36 0.000 80.55 0.000 10.22 0.000


Table I. Descriptive statistics and correlations

3.77 0.010 59.07 0.000 84.88 0.000 6.14 0.000 4.77 0.003 21.62 0.000 3.77 0.010 17.61 0.000 23.98 0.000 8.73 0.000 13.01 0.000 46.67 0.000 2.94 0.032 (a,b,c,d) are

Table II. Inter-generational comparison of career mobility and career move patterns

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employer per year than Millennials. Second, we analyzed the mobility index to determine whether younger generations are changing employers more as a proportion of their total job changes. From Table II, the ANOVA revealed a significant difference in the mobility index scores of the various generations (F [3, 1,956] ¼ 3.77, p ¼ 0.01). Post-hoc tests revealed that the Boomers had higher mobility index scores (i.e. more organization changes per job change) than Millennials and Generation Xers. There was also a significant generational effect in involuntary mobility rates (F[3, 2,518] ¼ 10.22, p o 0.001). Post-hoc tests revealed that Matures and Baby Boomers had significantly lower involuntary mobility rates than did Generation Xers and Millennials, but there were no differences between the two oldest or two youngest generations. To test for differences in upward mobility (H1c-H3c), we compared the average number of upward career moves, upward career moves per year, and percentage of upward career moves for the four generations using ANOVA and ad hoc pairwise t-tests with Bonferonni adjustments. As seen in Table II, there were significant inter-generational differences in the number of upward career moves (F [3, 2,483] ¼ 59.07, p o 0.001), upward moves per year (F[3, 2,474] ¼ 84.88, p o 0.001) and the relative percentage of upward career moves (F[3, 2,396] ¼ 6.14, p o 0.001). H1c was supported, as upward career moves were a significantly smaller proportion of total career moves for Boomers relative to Matures. Boomers had significantly greater proportions of downward and lateral career moves than did Matures, but there was no difference in the proportion of changes in career track. H2c and H3c were not supported, as there were no differences among Boomers, Xers and Millennials in the proportion of upward career moves. Boomers did, however have a slightly, but significantly higher proportion of lateral moves than Millennials. Discussion The present study examined whether we are in the midst of an inter-generational shift in career patterns as suggested by the anecdotal generational literature and the boundaryless and “new careers” literature. In concurrence with previous studies (Becton et al., 2014; Lyons et al., 2012a), our results provide evidence of increased job and organizational mobility across generations, which is a central characteristic of the “new career” archetype. Our measure of job mobility, which accounts for the rate of job and organizational changes per year of career employment, provides a more precise estimate of mobility rates than measures used elsewhere, such as number of jobs held over a five-year period (Becton et al., 2014) and jobs per year (Lyons et al., 2012a). The magnitude of the differences was large, as Millennials had almost twice as many job and organizational moves per year as the generation Xers, almost three times as many as the Boomers, and 4.5 times as many as the Matures. Furthermore, Generation Xers had almost twice as many job changes per year as the Boomers and 2.5 times more than the Matures. This pattern suggests that increased mobility is a prominent feature of the modern career and the trend appears to be amplified with successive generations. We also added to the understanding of job and organizational mobility by calculating the mobility index, which is the number of organization changes per job change. Our results show a relatively small change in the mobility index from generation to generation, suggesting that, apart from the Boomers, who changed employers slightly more than other generations as they moved through various jobs, we have not witnessed a pronounced increase in the rate at which people leave employers to take new jobs. This is an important finding that signifies that greater job

mobility does not necessarily coincide with increased rates of turnover. It may be that technology, globalization and economic shifts are rendering specific jobs obsolete more quickly than in the past (Baruch and Bozionelos, 2011), requiring workers to change jobs more often as a norm. It may also be that individuals’ jobs are changing around them, requiring them to move and adapt, even when they remain within the same organization. Another possible explanation for increased mobility in recent generations lies with structural factors such as economic conditions and shifts in the nature of employment relationships. As Inkson et al. (2012) noted, the degree of individual agency that is possible may be overstated by the new careers literature, as careers are enacted within institutional contexts that limit the ability of actors to plot their own career paths. Some authors argue that “precarious” and non-standard work arrangements, including cyclical layoffs, self-employment, part-time, temporary and multiple jobs have risen dramatically in North America since the 1970s (Kalleberg, 2009). This would suggest that the increased mobility observed in our study is at least partially attributable to an increase in non-standard work. We observed a small but significant increase in the rate of involuntary mobility in the two youngest generations relative to the two oldest. This suggests that involuntary mobility may have increased somewhat, but the increase was small, providing no clear evidence of a trend toward more transient work arrangements. This lends some support to the opposing view that traditional full-time employment remains the norm and average job tenure is not in decline (Jacoby, 1999; Rodrigues and Guest, 2010). The actual prevalence of non-standard work and its influence on the career paths of future workers merits further research attention. Another possibility is that changing labor market conditions, such as flattening of organizational hierarchies, an increasing tendency for organizations to “buy in” talent, rather than developing it internally, and outsourcing and layoffs as human resource management strategies (Baruch and Bozionelos, 2011; Moses, 1997) have resulted in a reactive, “free-agent” approach to careers. It may be that younger generations, in response to the changing labor market, have adopted a self-directed approach to their careers (Hall and Mirvis, 1996) and are engaging in mobility to improve their career capital and take advantage of developmental opportunities. Future research should explore the motives behind self-directed career moves to assist organizations in human resource planning. A major contribution of the present study is that it is the first to examine generational differences in career mobility patterns. Our findings do not support a shift toward a multi-directional career as posited by Baruch (2004). Although we expected that increased job and organizational mobility would coincide with a greater diversity of career moves, such as greater lateral, downward and disjunctive movements, it appears that upward moves continue to be the norm in careers. More than half of all documented job moves were in the upward direction and there has been only a slight reduction in their proportion of total career moves from generation to generation. Contrary to our expectations, each successive generation averaged more upward career moves per year than their predecessors. As expected, the Matures had a greater proportion of career moves in the upward direction relative to subsequent generations, but the proportion of upward moves did not differ among the Boomers, Xers and Millennials. Thus, it appears that a shift toward modern careers is evident between Matures and Boomers, but this trend has not intensified with successive generations. Although each successive generation, beginning with the Boomers, had more non-upward career moves (i.e. downward, lateral and career track moves) per year than


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preceding generations, all three types of non-upward moves were relatively stable as a proportion of total career moves, with differences between Matures and Boomers being the most pronounced. In other words, younger generations are simply making more career moves in all directions than previous generations, but the upward career path again remains the norm. By examining the career mobility patterns of four generations, our results further show that career-related generational differences do not follow a simple linear pattern; there were no significant differences between Matures and Boomers on career mobility variables and there were no differences among Boomers, Xers and Millennials in the proportion of upward and non-upward career moves. Instead, the pattern of differences observed in mobility variables suggests a broad generational divide between “older” and “younger” generations, with the tipping point coming between the Boomers and Generation Xers. This lends support to Twenge’s (2010) notion of a broader “Generation Me” encompassing all post-Boomers. Implications for organizations and employers Our results have important implications for researchers and employers. Career researchers should note that the oft-cited truisms about the “new” or “modern” careers may be exaggerated. Our study adds to the growing number of voices suggesting that the traditional career model is alive and well (e.g. Baruch and Bozionelos, 2011; Inkson et al., 2012). Our results show that a shift toward more diverse career patterns is evident only between the Matures and the Boomers, with limited evidence that careers are becoming less traditional for younger generations. Employers engaging in human resource planning should note that the career behaviors of younger workers suggest a continued desire for traditional upward mobility, but perhaps at a faster pace than previous generations. Adding additional, shorter steps into the traditional career progression may therefore be appealing to younger workers, enabling them to perceive that they are progressing more quickly. A more troubling implication of our findings for employers seeking to attract and retain workers is the large increase in job and organizational mobility that has occurred with successive generations. It seems that high levels of mobility are becoming increasingly normal. Employers should reevaluate existing recruitment and retention programs, as highly mobile individuals are more likely to be attracted to organizations and jobs that provide short-term advantages and benefits, rather than long-term opportunities. Retention rates are likely to differ across generations, requiring different benchmarking and retention approaches for each generation. Employers who are unable to satisfy younger workers’ desire for upward mobility should consider programs that recognize their inherent mobility, such as increased job rotation opportunities, rehiring of former employees, and partnerships with other organizations to allow for temporary secondments. Limitations and directions for future research Despite a large sample and a variety of measures, our study had some limitations that could be addressed in future research. First, our study relied on retrospective accounts of careers and career moves, which may have resulted in some data loss. Retrospective accounts were necessary in the absence of comparable life-course data from the various generations. Although we felt that such personal and objective facts as one’s number of jobs and employers would be less susceptible to recall errors than subjective

information (cf. Bernard et al., 1984), it is possible that forgotten or omitted jobs may have accounted for some of the gap between younger and older respondents. Similarly, respondents’ subjective classification of job moves as upward, downward, lateral and changes of track is susceptible to variability among respondents and possibly a bias toward labelling successive positions as upward. Research within single organizations would allow for more objective assessment of the direction of career moves. Furthermore, our data reflected respondents’ careers to date and therefore captured the generations at different career stages. It is possible that one’s rate of career mobility may not be constant over the career-cycle as individuals in later career stages are likely to be more stable and less focussed on advancement (Super, 1957). Thus, career moves may be more highly concentrated in the earlier career stages, and people may “settle down” and make fewer career moves. The average number of career moves per year reported in this study could decrease as age increases. However, recent qualitative research suggests that although workers from all generations appear to experience declining mobility as they age, the decline appears to be occurring later in the career for younger generations than for the older generations (Lyons et al., 2012b). Therefore, it is unlikely that the inter-generational differences in career moves observed in this study are attributable primarily to settling down across the career span. It would be ideal to gather career history data on a job-by-job basis, with information about the timing and duration of each job move. This would have allowed us to analyze job moves in terms in the context of career stage and historic period. Such an undertaking would be onerous for a cross-sectional survey and likely to severely impact response rates. Future research should aim to document career changes using a panel design, to observe objectively how individual career patterns change over time. Finally, careers are complex and multifaceted (Chudzikowski, 2012). There are many dimensions of careers that we have not examined in the present research. We therefore suggest that future research examine generational differences in other career-related variables and patterns, such as psychological contracts, career adaptability, job embeddedness and career success, to name a few. It would also be useful to analyze shifts within the contexts of specific occupations, industries and professions. Our study examined only the career patterns of managerial and professional workers and did not consider the career trajectories of non-professional workers. Kim (2013) found that increased organizational mobility was evident across occupational groups throughout the 1990s in the USA, but the nature of mobility differed significantly for non-professional workers, who increasingly made risky occupational moves in order to maintain employment in a changing economy. Future research should apply the generational perspective to a broader range of workers to determine whether generational differences interact with type of work in predicting career outcomes. References Arthur, M.B. and Rousseau, D.M. (1996), “The boundaryless career as a new employment principle”, in Arthur, M.G. and Rousseau, D.M. (Eds), The Boundaryless Career, Oxford University Press, New York, NY, pp. 3-20. Baruch, Y. (2004), “Transforming careers: from linear to multidimensional career paths”, Career Development International, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 58-73. Baruch, Y. and Bozionelos, N. (2011), “Career issues”, in Zedeck, S. (Ed.), APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Volume 2: Selecting and Developing Members of the Organization, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, pp. 67-113.


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Becton, J.B., Walker, H.J. and Jones-Farmer, A. (2014), “Generational differences in workplace behavior”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 175-189. Bernard, H.R., Killworth, P., Kronenfeld, D. and Sailer, L. (1984), “The problem of informant accuracy: the validity of retrospective data”, Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 495-517. Burke, R.J. and Ng, E. (2006), “The changing nature of work and organizations: implications for human resource management”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 86-94. Capelli, P. (1999), “Career jobs are dead”, California Management Review, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 146-167. Canada Employment Insurance Commission (CEIC) (2012), Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report, 2009, Employment and Social Development Canada, Ottawa Chudzikowski, K. (2012), “Career transitions and career success in the ‘new’ career era”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 81 No. 2, pp. 298-306. Dries, N. and Verbruggen, M. (2012), “Fresh perspectives on the ‘new’ career: introduction to the special section”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 81 No. 2, pp. 269-270. Foot, D.K. and Stoffman, D. (1998), Boom, Bust & Echo 2000: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the New Millennium, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, Toronto. Feldman, D.C. and Ng, T.W.H. (2007), “Careers: mobility, embeddedness, and success”, Journal of Management, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 350-377. Freedman, D.A. (2001), “Ecological inference and the ecological fallacy”, in Smelser, N.J. and Baltes, P.B. (Eds), International Encyclopedia for the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 4027-4030. Gower, D. (1992), “A note on Canadian unemployment since 1921”, Perspectives on Labour and Income, Vol. 4 No. 3, pp. 1-5. Hall, D.T. and Mirvis, P.H. (1996), “The new protean career: psychological success and the path with a heart”, in Hall, D.T. and Associates (Eds), The Career is Dead – Long Live the Career: A Relational Approach to Careers, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, pp. 15-45. Howe, N. and Strauss, W. (2007), “The next 20 years: how customer and workforce attitudes will evolve”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 85 Nos 7-8, pp. 41-52. Inkson, K., Gunz, H., Ganesh, S. and Roper, J. (2012), “Boundaryless careers: bringing back boundaries”, Organization Studies, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 323-340. Jacoby, S.M. (1999), “Are career jobs headed for extinction?”, California Management Review, Vol. 42 No. 1, pp. 123-145. Kalleberg, A.L. (2009), “Precarious work, insecure workers: employment relations in transition”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 74 No. 1, pp. 1-22. Kim, Y.-M. (2013), “Diverging top and converging bottom: labour flexibilization and changes in career mobility in the USA”, Work, Employment and Society, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 860-879. Kupperschmidt, B.R. (2000), “Multigeneration employees: strategies for effective management”, The Health Care Manager, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 65-76. Lancaster, L.C. and Stillman, D. (2002), When Generations Collide, Harper Collins, New York, NY. Lyons, S. and Kuron, L. (2013), “Generational differences in the workplace: a review of the evidence and directions for future research”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 35 No. S1, pp. S139-S157. Lyons, S.T., Ng, E.S. and Schweitzer, L. (2012a), “Generational career shift: millennials and the changing nature of careers in Canada”, in Ng, E.S., Lyons, S.T. and Schweitzer, L. (Eds), Managing the New Workforce: International Perspectives on the Millennial Generation, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 64-85.

Lyons, S.T., Schweitzer, L., Ng, E.S. and Kuron, L.K. (2012b), “Comparing apples to apples: a qualitative investigation of career mobility patterns across four generations”, Career Development International, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 333-357. Moses, B. (1997), Career Intelligence: Mastering the New Work and Personal Realities, Stoddard, Toronto. Ng, E.S.W., Schweitzer, L. and Lyons, S.T. (2010), “New generation, great expectations: a field study of the millennial generation”, Journal of Business Psychology, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 281-292. Ng, T.W.H., Sorensen, K.L., Eby, L.T. and Feldman, D.C. (2007), “Determinants of job mobility: a theoretical integration and extension”, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 80 No. 3, pp. 363-386. Rodrigues, R.A. and Guest, D. (2010), “Have careers become boundaryless?”, Human Relations, Vol. 63 No. 8, pp. 1157-1175. Smola, K. and Sutton, C.D. (2002), “Generational differences: revisiting generational work values for the new millennium”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 363-382. Sullivan, S. and Baruch, Y. (2009), “Advances in career theory and research: a critical review and agenda for future exploration”, Journal of Management, Vol. 35 No. 6, pp. 1542-1571. Sullivan, S.E. (1999), “The changing nature of careers: a review and research agenda”, Journal of Management, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 457-484. Sullivan, S.E. and Arthur, M.B. (2006), “The evolution of the boundaryless career concept: examining physical and psychological mobility”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 69 No. 1, pp. 19-29. Super, D. (1957), Psychology of Careers, Harper and Brothers, New York, NY. Super, D. (1980), “A life-span, life-space approach to career development”, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 282-298. Twenge, J.M. (2010), “A review of the empirical evidence on generational differences in work attitudes”, Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 25 No. 2, pp. 201-210. Twenge, J.M., Campbell, S.M., Hoffman, B.R. and Lance, C.E. (2010), “Generational differences in work values: leisure and extrinsic values increasing, social and intrinsic values decreasing”, Journal of Management, Vol. 36 No. 5, pp. 1117-1142. Further reading Canada Employment Insurance Commission (CEIC) (2009), Monitoring and Assessment Report, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, Ottawa.

Corresponding author Dr Sean T. Lyons can be contacted at: [email protected]

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