The research proposed in this FIRST Award application examines the antecedents, consequences and dynamics of organizational age structures. The first research task develops a typology of organizational age composition patterns and tests hypotheses relating these patterns to attributes of jobs, organizational sub-units and organizations. The second task examines competing models of mobility within organizations. This task also assesses the conditions under which organizations can adapt to demographic shifts in external labor force without experiencing disruptions in organizational mobility processes. The third task develops retirement and turnover models incorporating measures of organizational age structure. The proposed research uses a unique database describing the California state civil service between 1974 and 1985; this database includes comprehensive information on the characteristics of 30 state agencies and complete employment histories for 150,000 employees of the agencies. Together, the three tasks comprising the proposed research program contribute to a better understanding of the interplay between demographic change in the labor force, organizational age structures, and the employment and mobility experience of individual workers.
