and retirement living (reflect on vocational self-concept; life review).
After a long period of maintenance, workers eventually experience
a decline in energy for and interest in their occupation. Accordingly,
they start to disengage from it by decelerating, that is, slowing down
on the job, starting to turn over tasks to younger colleagues, and con-
templating retirement. In due course, retirement planning becomes a
central activity that leads eventually to separation from the occupa-
tion and commencement of retirement living with its challenges of
organizing a new life structure and different lifestyle. The develop-
mental tasks of retirement living, such as life review, are best addressed
in gerontology textbooks, not books that tell the story of careers.
This story of the career stages, with their maxicycles and mini-
cycles, tells a grand narrative about psychosocial development and
cultural adaptation. Maybe no one individual ever lived all of it, yet
the narrative serves as an organizing story that people use to under-
stand themselves and others. Nevertheless, Super’s account is not
theaccount; it is anaccount of vocational development tasks for
one culture in one historical era. It was written at midcentury to
portray the then-current corporate culture and societal expectations
for a life, especially a male life. Other accounts are being narrated
today as the global economy, information technology, and social
justice challenge dominant narratives and rewrite the social orga-
nization of work and the meaning of career. These rich narratives
chronicle untold stories and voice complexity. Although postin-
dustrial societies are revising master narratives about work, the new
story lines for contemporary lives are far from being clear, coherent,
and complete. These new stories, rather than focusing on progress
through an orderly sequence of predictable tasks, will increasingly
focus on adaptability for transitions, especially coping with changes
that are unexpected and traumatic.
Evaluations of Career Construction Theory
Career construction theory embodies the essential elements in the
functionalist system of psychology. It emphasizes empirical research,
focuses on relations among variables, stresses the provisional and
182 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT