Human Sustainability Across the Life Course: Integrating Economic Decisions, Work Trajectories and Digital Transitions
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2027 | Viewed by 4
Special Issue Editor
Interests: work and organizational psychology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Human sustainability has emerged as a key concept for understanding how individuals navigate increasingly complex and uncertain environments. However, research in this area often remains fragmented, with separate traditions examining economic behavior, work trajectories, or educational processes in isolation.
At the same time, individuals are required to make inter-related decisions across these domains. Financial planning, career development, and engagement with digital technologies are no longer independent processes but mutually reinforcing dimensions of long-term adaptation. A life-course perspective offers a useful framework to capture how these processes unfold over time and how early conditions shape later outcomes.
This Special Issue will advance an integrated approach to human sustainability by bringing together contributions that examine how individuals sustain functioning, well-being, and participation across economic, occupational, and educational contexts. Particular attention is given to processes of adaptation under structural change, including digitalization, demographic shifts, and labor market transformations.
We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions, including original research articles and reviews. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Economic decision-making across the life course (e.g., financial planning, retirement, savings behavior);
- Work trajectories and career adaptation in changing labor markets;
- Lifelong learning, digital skills, and AI adoption;
- Intersections between employment, education, and economic behavior;
- Inequality accumulation and cumulative (dis)advantage over time;
- Psychological processes underlying adaptation (e.g., motivation, identity, perceived control);
- Transitions (e.g., school-to-work, career changes, retirement);
- The role of institutions and policies in shaping individual sustainability;
- Cross-cultural and comparative perspectives on human sustainability.
By bringing together diverse perspectives, this Special Issue will deepen our understanding of how individuals sustain their lives and trajectories amid ongoing social and economic transformation.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Prof. Dr. Gabriela Topa
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- human sustainability
- life-course perspective
- economic decision-making
- work trajectories
- career adaptation
- lifelong learning
- digital transition
- artificial intelligence adoption
- inequality and cumulative processes
- labor market dynamics
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