CAREER LINES IN THE NETHERLANDS - AN APPLICATION OF THE SPILERMAN SPENNER APPROACH/

By virtue of his 1977 article, Seymour Spilerman launched a research p rogramme focused on structural determinants of occupational careers. H is proposition has received a great deal of approval and some empirica l applications, the most noteworthy one being the voluminous study of U.S. career lines by Spenner, Otto and Call (1982). Panel data from th e Dutch Organisation for Strategic Labour Market Research (OSA) now en able us to replicate these analyses and map career lines over the full range of the Dutch labour market. The analysis is organised around fi ve concepts that have with some modifications been adopted from Spenne r et al. Applying synthetic cohorts, the career lines of Dutch occupat ional groups and labour market segments have been analysed with respec t to their (1) age composition, (2) continuity, (3) channelling, (4) p orts of entry and exit, and (5) career development. The mobility patte rns of occupational groups and labour market segments have been found to be strongly related to the career stage, indicating the fruitfulnes s of the career-line approach. In most cases, the career lines neatly correspond to hypotheses derived from the labour-market segmentation t heory. In combination, the five career-line concepts present a clear v iew of how labour market dynamics are contained within occupational st ructures.