Sustainable employability: consideration of the concept from a life-course and diversity perspective

The rise of the retirement age and growing diversity in the labor market require policies on sustainable employability (SE) that take into account life course and diversity perspectives. The aim of this article is to understand if and how these perspectives are incorporated into the selected definitions of employability and SE. This article consists of (1) a concise narrative literature study with 13 articles that constructed a definition of employability or SE, and (2) an analysis of empirical articles relating life course and diversity perspectives to SE. Our analysis reveals that these definitions hardly take into account life course and diversity. We only identified definitions in which life course and career are separated, and aspects of diversity are not an integral part of the definition. While definitions do portray the interaction between employee and work, SE as a characteristic of the employee only, or even as an employee-work interaction falls short. To bring the concept of SE closer to the lived experiences of employees with a wide range of diversity characteristics, we argue that life course and categories of difference should be integral to SI definitions and research into SE. Doing so may supports employers in developing a SI policy that does justice to the uniqueness of each employee.