Why the study?
To examine patterns of sports-related and socio-economic resources at the time of athletic retirement and their relation to subsequent vocational careers.
Former Olympic athletes with diverse resources have better vocational opportunities after retirement, though sports success can compensate for lower educational attainment if pursuing a career in sports.
Patterns of retirement resources may guide athlete transition support; leaves open causal pathways to vocational outcomes.
The aim of this study was to examine patterns of sports-related and socio-economic resources at the time of athletic retirement and their relation to the subsequent vocational career. We surveyed 341 former Olympic athletes representing Switzerland about their athletic, educational, and vocational careers. In order to adequately depict the heterogeneous situations of athletes during and after their athletic career, we applied a person-oriented approach. This involves adopting a holistic perspective and using nonlinear methods of analysis to allow for interactions between different aspects of an athlete’s career. Using cluster analytic techniques, we found different patterns of sports-related and socio-economic resources at the time of athletic retirement which were related with specific vocational career paths. In particular, clusters disposing of manifold resources had various opportunities in working life, whereas clusters with few resources fared less well. However, a lack of educational certificates could be compensated for by success in sports and popularity, provided that the vocational activity was pursued in sport. These findings may help career counsellors to better understand athletes’ career development options and provide services of ever-improving quality.
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Schmid et al. (2022) studied this question.
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