FNRS Call for Proposals 2025: Analyzing life trajectories to better understand career extension

Entitled ACAPARES, this research project aims to analyze career extension through the lens of workers' life trajectories and the inequalities they face. In collaboration with geographer Thierry Eggerickx from UCLouvain, Nathalie Burnay seeks to better understand the obstacles and limitations to extending careers, as encouraged by public authorities.

In concrete terms, this project, which runs from 2026 to 2030, will focus on three complementary areas: 

• The first component will analyze the social stereotypes that weigh on workers over the age of 50. To do this, the team will draw on a large-scale quantitative survey, modeled on the 2004 CAPA survey, which was also supervised by Nathalie Burnay. The objective? To compare the evolution of these representations of older workers in the same context and based on the same protocol. This is a completely new approach!
• The second part will focus on the health of older workers. Using quantitative data, it will look at how the health of workers—particularly those with long-term illnesses—affects whether they continue or stop working at the end of their careers.
• Finally, the third part will examine the influence of professional activity on healthy life expectancy. Periods of unemployment, inactivity, or more difficult working conditions will thus be scrutinized by researchers.

To carry out this research, Jean-Paul Sanderson (postdoctoral demographer) recently joined UNamur.

The analysis of life trajectories from a work perspective is a recurring theme in Nathalie Burnay's research. She approaches these issues through an analysis of social policies, changing working conditions, and normative transformations in the contemporary world. In 2023, she obtained F.R.S-FNRS funding for the BRIDGE-EXT project, which focuses on post-retirement work through a comparative study of different welfare state systems. Nathalie Burnay has also just obtained ARC (Actions de Recherche Concertées) funding with Michel Ajzen (EMCP Faculty) for the "SUSCARE" project, which focuses on changes in work and the conditions for its sustainability, both for workers and managers.