Title: Making a Career: Individual Work-Life Histories and Labour Market Structures

Contact Information: Dr Marco H.D. van Leeuwen, Netherlands Economic History Archives, Cruquiusweg 31, 1019 AT Amsterdam. Ph: 31.20.6685866. Fax: 31.20.6654181. Email: mle@iisg.nl

Other Organizers: Dr David Mitch (Economics, University of Maryland, USA), John Brown (Department of Economics, Clark University USA)

Description: The session will consist of studies in which the unit of analysis is the career/work-life history of the individual worker. We expect to include studies using quantitative data sets with longitudinal information on workers and studies employing biographical and qualitative evidence on collections of workers. Among the issues we hope the studies will address are: a) Patterns of occupational, task, and job tenure and turnover for individual workers. b) The steepness (or flatness) of age-earnings profiles in various settings. c) Actors that have structured career/work-life experiences in various settings, including: i) guild structures with apprentice-journeyman-master transitions; ii) professionalization; iii) rise of internal labour markets in modern corporations; iv) rise of bureaucratic meritocracies.

Preconference: There will be a preconference for this session, entitled "Job and Career Security in Historical Perspective," in Luxembourg, June 28-June 30, 2001.

Participants: Haya Spahyer-Makov; Susan E. Hirsch and Janet L. Reiff (USA); Mary MacKinnon (USA); Robin Mackie and Gerrylynn K. Roberts (USA); Maria Silvia Badoza; C. Race and Gender; Patricia Thane (UK); Alison Parkinson; Marco H.D. van Leeuwen and Ineke Maas (The Netherlands); John C. Brown and Gerhard Neumeier (USA); David Mitch (USA); Franco Barchiesi and Bridget Kenny (Germany); Kees Mandemakers (USA); Barry King (USA); Juan Martín Moreno.