Drivers of Involuntary Career Changes: A Qualitative Study of Push, Pull, Anti-Push, and Anti-Pull Factors

Abstract

Although research on work transitions is extensive, little is known about the specific challenges of involuntary career changes. This study focused on how people articulate push, pull, anti-push, and anti-pull factors when facing an involuntarily triggered career change. We conducted 19 semistructured interviews with people forced to change careers due to health issues, migration, or unemployment in Switzerland. Through a consensual qualitative analysis, we showed that career changes were driven (i.e., facilitated or inhibited) by participants’ interests, values, or skills. This resulted in five types of processes of career change, depending on whether participants were aiming to maintain their values, update their values, transpose their interests, resuscitate forgone interests, or valorize their skills despite the involuntary nature of the change they were undergoing. Overall, findings stressed individuals’ struggle to regain a sense of control when having to face a career change. Limitations and implications are discussed.