Configurations of Sustainable Career Indicators: A Fuzzy Cluster Analysis of Colombian Workers

Sustainable careers require happiness, health, and productivity to be considered jointly, yet little is known about how these indicators combine within workers. Using fuzzy clustering, we examined sustainable-career profiles among 1,330 Colombian workers and compared them on perceived external employability and wage. Seven of eight theoretically plausible profiles emerged: sustainable, happy–productive, happy–healthy, productive, happy, healthy, and non-sustainable. The sustainable profile showed the most consistently favorable outcomes, reporting higher employability than all profiles except the happy–productive profile and higher wages than the single-indicator and non-sustainable profiles, but not the partially sustainable profiles. The partially sustainable profiles did not consistently outperform single-indicator profiles. These findings support a configurational understanding of career sustainability while showing that favorable indicators do not operate as a simple additive hierarchy. Career sustainability depends on the pattern in which happiness, health, and productivity coexist within workers and contexts.

Bayona, J.A. and J. M. Peiró (2026). «Configurations of Sustainable Career Indicators: A Fuzzy Cluster Analysis of Colombian Workers». Australian Journal of Career Development 35(3): 314-324.