Career pattern, in vocational psychology dictionary

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Dictionary of Vocational Psychology

Adapted from earlier used in sociology by Donald Super (1957) to address typical sequences of occupations in the lives of workers. The career pattern is closely related to Super's concept of life stages, in that one could analyze common patterns of occupational positions in order to identify life stages (Super, 1957, p. 71). Super endorsed a four category system of the career patterns of men proposed by Davidson and Anderson (1937):

The stable career pattern. Direct progression from schooling into a stable field of work, skipping the initial and trial work periods. The chance of having a stable career pattern increased for those with fathers having higher status occupations.
The conventional career pattern. Positions follow the standard progression from initial, to trial, to stable employment.
The unstable career pattern. Seems to be moving toward permanent choice of field, but then changes direction, where the whole effort to establish oneself must begin anew.
The multiple-trial career pattern. Frequent changes of employment making it difficult to establish oneself in a career.

Super (1957, pp. 77-78) also proposed seven career patterns for women:

The stable homemaking career pattern. Women who marry while in or shortly after completing schooling; they have no significant work experience.
The conventional career pattern. Women who take jobs traditionally open to women immediately after completing schooling, and follow this work for a while, but then marry and become a homemaker. Teaching, nursing, and secretarial work are typical initial occupations that fit this pattern.
The stable working career pattern. Similar to the stable career pattern for men; does not involve leaving work to become a homemaker, or in trying to carry out traditional homemaking roles on the side.
The double-track career pattern. Begins work after school, marries, continues working role on the double-track. May take time-out for child-bearing. Essentially involves two jobs for the woman.
The interrupted career pattern. Sequences of working, homemaker, and working. Woman may or may not return to her original field; teaching is frequently returned to, but not secretarial work.
The unstable career pattern. Much like the unstable career pattern for men, except homemaking can be added.
The multiple-trial career pattern. Similar to the same-named pattern for men.

In the nearly seven decades since Davidson and Anderson first proposed their classification system of men's career patterns, the pattern of employment has changed dramatically in the United States. It would seem that unstable and multiple-trial career patterns are much more common, both in professional and other fields. And since Super first proposed career patterns for women in the 1950s, patterns of women's employment have likewise changed. See Betz and Fitzgerald (1987, pp. 21-24) for an updated discussion of the career patterns of women.