Measuring career mobility: An empirical comparison of six mobility indexes

The current paper presents six indexes that can be used to characterize the course of a career during a particular time interval, respectively, (1) th e total number of transitions during that interval; (2) the number of posit ive transitions; (3) the number of negative transitions; (4) the subtractio n of the number of negative transitions from the number of positive transit ions; (5) the relative uncommonness of the transitions; and (6) the subtrac tion of the number of negative transitions from the number of positive tran sitions, weighted by their uncommonness. Advantages and disadvantages of th ese six indexes are discussed. Further, an empirical example is presented t hat draws on data from a sample of 357 employed Dutch youth. Finally, our a pproach is compared to previous approaches (event-centered methods, such as survival analysis, and career-centered methods, such as clustering techniq ues). It is concluded that our simple approach complements these other appr oaches well.