How does getting an occupational license late in your career relate to changing jobs or easing into retirement?

Details

Occupational licenses are often considered a career development option for younger workers because, for older workers, the costs of obtaining them are thought to outweigh the benefits. Yet a significant proportion of workers obtain licenses later in life. The reasons for and outcomes of this later-life attainment are not well documented.

This observational study investigated and compared sociodemographic and economic predictors of obtaining occupational licenses later in life, along with work and retirement decisions following attainment, before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study used respondents aged 55–63 from the Current Population Studies: 1,927 men and 1,576 women in 2018–2019, and 1,501 men and 1,182 women in 2023–2024. Logistic regressions were used first to examine predictors of later-life license attainment. Clustered competing risk analysis with propensity score matching was then used to compare retirement pathway choices between newly licensed and unlicensed workers in the pre- and post-pandemic cohorts.

After the pandemic, men's license attainment decreased (odds ratio, OR = 0.439), while women's attainment increased (OR = 8.399). Newly licensed women were more likely than unlicensed women to move to different employers both before the pandemic (subdistribution hazard ratio, SHR = 1.50) and after it (SHR = 1.23). Newly licensed men were more likely than unlicensed men to switch to part-time work after the pandemic (SHR = 3.75).

The findings suggest that the purpose of obtaining occupational licenses later in life varies by gender and period. The author interprets these patterns as suggesting that later-life licensing may contribute to longer working lives through alternative retirement pathways.