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Older Workers and Occupational Identity in the Telecommunications Industry: Navigating Employment Transitions through the Life Course

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Abigail MarksORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Abstract

© The Author(s) 2018.The article examines the relationship between restructuring and work-based identity among older workers, exploring occupational identity, occupational community and their roles in navigating transitions in the life course. Based on working-life biographical interviews with late career and retired telecoms engineers, the article explores the role of occupational identity in dealing with change prior to and following the end of careers at BT, the UK’s national telecommunications provider. Restructuring and perpetual organizational change undermined key aspects of the engineering occupational identity, inspiring many to seek alternative employment outside BT. For older workers, some seeking bridge employment in the transition to retirement, the occupational community not only served as a mechanism for finding work but also provided a sustained collective identity resource. Distinctively, the research points to a dialectical relationship between occupational identity and the navigation of change as opposed to the former simply facilitating the latter.

Publication metadata

Author(s): MacKenzie R, Marks A

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Work, Employment and Society

Year: 2019

Volume: 33

Issue: 1

Pages: 39-55

Print publication date: 01/02/2019

Online publication date: 06/04/2018

Acceptance date: 01/12/2017

Date deposited: 02/09/2022

ISSN (print): 0950-0170

ISSN (electronic): 1469-8722

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd

URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017018760212

DOI: 10.1177/0950017018760212

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