Vocational education is considered beneficial to young workers entering the labor market but disadvantageous late in their careers. Many studies assume that late-career disadvantages stem from lower levels of occupational mobility, but do not explicitly study this mechanism. This study is the first to empirically assess whether and to what extent occupational mobility differs between workers with a general education and those with vocational training and to examine how these differences develop over workers’ life courses. Using multilevel linear probability models on panel data spanning 36 years of labor market participation in Germany, we find that vocationally educated workers are less mobile, but only in the first half of their careers. In the second half, mobility rates for vocationally and generally trained workers converge. Our findings support earlier research that links vocational education to less turbulent early careers. Yet, they do not support the notion of late-career mobility disparities between workers with different types of training. Implications for research on education-based differences in career outcomes are discussed.

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职业教育被认为有利于年轻工人进入劳动力市场，但对其职业生涯后期不利。许多研究认为，职业生涯后期的劣势源于较低的职业流动性，但没有明确研究这一机制。这项研究首次实证评估了受过普通教育的工人和接受过职业培训的工人之间的职业流动性是否存在差异以及在多大程度上存在差异，并探讨了这些差异在工人的一生中如何发展。利用德国 36 年劳动力市场参与面板数据的多级线性概率模型，我们发现受过职业教育的工人流动性较低，但仅限于职业生涯的前半段。下半年，职业工人和一般培训工人的流动率趋同。我们的研究结果支持了早期的研究，该研究将职业教育与不那么动荡的早期职业联系起来。然而，他们并不支持接受过不同类型培训的工人之间存在职业后期流动性差异的观点。讨论了基于教育的职业结果差异研究的意义。

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