Occupational Careers and Job Interruptions: On Methodological Issues of Constructing Long Trajectories

Abstract

This study uses the Polish Panel Survey POLPAN 1988–2013 to showcase methodological issues of converting panel data into career trajectories. Three metrics are proposed to describe career trajectories: calendar year, age of respondent, and subsequent career year starting from the first job. I present the POLPAN data in each of these metrics and discuss their benefits and limitations. The article then deals with the issue of selecting a single job that best describes the respondent’s occupational position when the respondent holds two or more different jobs. One possible solution is to select a single job using an original five-step algorithm. The problem of multiple jobs can also be solved by defining the career trajectory through occupational scales. A total of six such scales are available in POLPAN. The study further shows how data on career trajectories can be supplemented with data about job interruptions caused by unemployment, birth of a child, military service, or other reasons. A separate section is devoted to Converter-2015, a computer application that converts the original wide-format POLPAN data to the long format required in longitudinal analyses. I also propose an additional new “presentation” format, which helps identify job career patterns. The paper ends with a discussion of data quality issues.

Keywords:

• Career trajectories
• job interruptions
• longitudinal data
• panel survey
• Polish Panel Survey POLPAN

Notes

Since POLPAN was not designed as a longitudinal survey, it can be, paradoxically, called an ad hoc panel study. POLPAN emerged on the basis of the survey Social Structure II, which was a cross-sectional study that did not take into account the need to recontact the respondents. The political situation of the mid-1980s in Poland, when that study was conducted, did not allow researchers to plan any longitudinal research endeavors. Consequently, efforts have focused on conducting a study on a relatively large, random sample in order to collect data on career trajectories during the postwar period. However, after the systemic change of 1989 it became clear that the collected data offer a unique opportunity to expand the survey to include the years of the country’s transformation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zbigniew Sawiński

Zbigniew Sawiński is a professor of sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences; he is also affiliated with the Education Research Institute, a Polish governmental research unit. He has authored and coauthored several books and journal articles in Polish and English on methodological issues in the social sciences, social stratification, and educational inequality.