Three White Papers on Careers in the Netherlands and Belgium

Together with Sofie Jacobs (Antwerp Management School, Belgium) and House of HR, I conducted a study among 1.600 Dutch and Belgian employees to study various themes concerning their careers. Based on this research, we published three white papers, which are freely available to anyone (in Dutch and English). You can find a brief article about all three articles, with links to each one, HERE. Note that the text is in Dutch, but the papers are also available in English via the links.

White paper 1 focuses on sustainable careers and career mobility. In this paper, we discuss topics such as happiness, health, and employability among workers in both countries. An example of a finding that stood out is that the general willingness to engage in career mobility is low, but we find that a moderate degree of mobility relates positively to desirable career outcomes, such as happiness and health. You can find this white paper HERE.

White paper 2 focuses on career success and career goals. We discuss both objective (e.g., promotions and salary) and subjective (e.g., satisfaction) indicators of career success among Dutch and Belgian workers. Among other things, we found that women and men report, overall, very similar levels of career success. However, despite those similarities, women still report earning a lower salary than men. You can find this white paper HERE.

White paper 3 focuses on proactive career behaviors, career shocks, and regret. For example, we discuss how career proactivity may relate to career success and career sustainability. We also examined whether the participants experienced major career shocks and regret, and what role this played in their career outcomes. A remarkable finding was that the youngest group of workers reported the highest levels of career regret. We also found that the more shocks people experienced, the higher their career regret was. You can find this white paper HERE.

Together, these three white papers offer a lot of valuable information about careers in the Netherlands and Belgium. Hopefully, they will offer some inspiration to researchers, professionals, and policy makers.