Vocational careers of retired Olympic athletes from Switzerland: A person-oriented study

Abstract

For many high-performance athletes, competing in the Olympic Games is a major goal. Achieving this goal requires more than ever substantial investments of time and personal resources towards the sports career over several years. Thus, some athletes neglect other areas of life (e.g. education), which can pose a problem for the time after high-performance sport, while other athletes pursue a dual career. Previous studies have shown that former high-performance athletes achieved higher levels of education and better vocational positions than the general population. Due to the advancing professionalization and commercialization of high-performance sport, the question emerges whether these results are valid for athletes that are more recently retired. In addition, cross-cultural generalisability of these findings are of interest. For this purpose, 341 former athletes representing Switzerland at the Olympics were surveyed about their athletic, educational, and vocational careers. It turns out that these athletes obtained more degrees of higher education than the general population. Relative to their siblings, they have higher school-leaving certificates and work in more prestigious occupations. Following the holistic-interactionistic paradigm, person-oriented analyses was performed and revealed nine – mostly satisfactory – vocational career patterns. Hence, involvement in high-performance sport facilitates rather than hinders a successful vocational career.

Linking sports-related and socio-economic resources of retiring Olympic athletes to their subsequent vocational career

“…The results show that the majority of Swiss Olympians were also able to build a successful vocational career after retiring from sports. However, similar to Conzelmann and Nagel (2003), major differences were found between the various career types regarding their pathway: While some athletes pursue a normal academic career alongside sports, others focus exclusively on sports and choose to stay in sports after the end of their athletic career, for example, as a coach (Schmid et al, 2021). However, there are also athletes who have difficulties building a vocational career or are not satisfied with it.…”

“…However, being an elite athlete is not a lifetime job. Indeed, the average age of athletic retirement is soon after 30 (e.g., in Switzerland at around 31 years; see Kuettel et al, 2017; Schmid et al, 2021). As a result, a reorientation at a relatively young age is required.…”

“…Several studies have investigated the vocational career of former high-performance athletes (e.g., Conzelmann and Nagel, 2003; López de Subijana et al, 2020; Nagel, 2002; Schmid et al, 2021; Vilanova and Puig, 2017). In general, it can be said that the majority is able to successfully launch a vocational career.…”

“…Due to the ongoing professionalization and commercialization in sports as well as cultural differences, a similar study was recently conducted in Switzerland (Schmid et al, 2021). The results show that the majority of Swiss Olympians were also able to build a successful vocational career after retiring from sports.…”

“…Several studies have demonstrated gender differences in this context. For example, women frequently earn less money during their sports career (Kuettel et al, 2017) and pursue slightly more often than men a problematic career path (Schmid et al, 2021). Similarly, in Spain retired female athletes were found to experience more difficulties when entering the labor market as well as earning less than retired male athletes (Barriopedro et al, 2018).…”