Work Careers and Organizational Careers

The tendencies for older workers and more senior workers to exhibit lower rates of job mobility than their counterparts who are, respectively, younger and less senior, have a long history in labor market research. Yet little attention has been given to the distinct career processes underlying these observed patterns. Drawing on perspectives from life-course and organizational sociology, the author argues that age and tenure are markers of the temporal structures, or timetables, that underlie individual and organizational work careers. These timetables provide incentives for maintaining the employment relationship by allocating organizational rewards over time or by defining normative points of entry into and exit from the labor force. They also intersect as workers initiate new organizational careers at different ages. This “loose-coupling” between individual and organizational career patterns and its effects on job mobility can be represented empirically by the interaction between age and tenure. Using data from the 1977 Quality of Employment Survey, the author shows that short- and long-term seniority consistently strengthen attachment among older workers, but tenure has weaker effects at younger ages. Additional analyses show that similar patterns prevail among men, but the relationship between individual and organizational careers is less consequential for women's attachment behavior.