FIGURE IT OUT… Ehpad managers experience a wide variety of “hierarchical”, “horizontal” and “external” mobility.

Christine Vallin, a sociologist, is interested in the career paths of directors of a French nursing homes for the dependent aged people (Ehpad). Her aim is to identify and analyse classic and specific career profiles, by combining personal and professional lives. Her work is based on a questionnaire, distributed since March 2024 mainly via LinkedIn, followed by 50 interviews and a focus group. She obtained 407 responses to the questionnaire: 35% of the respondents are no longer in the profession and seniority is relatively low compared with the statistics of the profession; the distribution by gender and age is similar.
 

Based on this sample, Christine VALLIN confirms the existence of varied career paths at the head of Ehpad. 'External’ career moves are the most common among these respondents: 70% of them have worked in a field other than medicosocial care at some point in their career, and 33% in a management position. 'Hierarchical’ professional mobility is also present: 29% of respondents have held a position with higher responsibilities than director of an Ehpad. The responses also included a variety of ‘horizontal’ mobility: 65% of respondents had changed Ehpad and 46% had been in at least two sectors, among public, private not-for-profit and private for-profit sectors. Finally, a small proportion of respondents had not experienced any of these moves (7%) and another proportion had experienced them all (7%).

While the original hypothesis of this questionnaire was that there would be a diversity of pathways into the profession, these responses show that the variety of pathways does not stop at entry into the profession; it also concerns career paths within the profession. The interviews will help us to understand the reasons for this mobility.