Career Employment and Job Stopping

Career jobs typically end well before retirement and are followed by a period of postcareer employment. Although the most financially successful transitions occur when new positions are obtained in the same industry and occupation as the career job, mobility usually involves a change in industry andlor in occupation. Pension-covered career jobs last longer and more frequently end in retirement than noncovered positions. Pensions may also reduce the probability that retirements occur at very young ages and delay retirements when coverage is first obtained in postcareer employment.     

Jobs Lost, Jobs Regained: An Analysis of Black/White Differences in Job Displacement in the 1980s

Over the period 1982–1991, black men were considerably more likely to experience job displacement than were white men, and following displacement, the likelihood of reemployment was substantially lower for black men. Using data from the 1984–1992 Displaced Worker Surveys, we find that black men experienced rates of job displacement that were 30 percent higher, and reemployment rates that were 30 percent lower than the corresponding rates for white men. We find that racial differences in education levels and occupational distributions explain part of these racial gaps in job displacement and reemployment, whereas racial differences in industry distributions worked to narrow these gaps.     

Job Security Provisions and Employment: Revised Estimates

This article provides estimates of the effect of statutory severance pay and notice on four labor market outcome indicators, closely following Lazear (1990) but correcting for errors in his dependent variables and covariates. Although we corroborate the directional influence of severance pay for three of the indicators, there is little to suggest that its contribution to rising unemployment is material. Also contrary to Lazear, longer notice appears to be associated with broadly favorable outcomes.     

Employment Protection,Threat and Incentive Effects on Worker Absence

This article provides new evidence on the effect of changes in employment protection on worker absence. We use novel multi‐organization data to examine changes in worker absence as workers move from temporary to permanent employment contracts. We demonstrate a robust positive effect of employment protection on sickness absence. It has also been suggested that the impact of employment protection on absence and effort is due to a fear of dismissal. We also provide evidence that suggests that temporary workers' absence is influenced by incentives to attain jobs with protection that is unrelated to threat of dismissal. This has not been considered in earlier research. This channel of employment protection effects has important policy implications.     

English Language and Low‐Skilled Jobs: The Structure of Employment

We use the Bay Area Longitudinal Surveys (BALS) to examine skill requirements, the joint use of English and non‐language skills, and wages in low‐skilled jobs. Results show that low‐skilled jobs—even those open to workers with limited English—require English language skills. Furthermore, most make joint use of English and non‐language skills with the ability of any specific English skill set to enhance varying with the job’s specific non‐language skill required and industry.     

Employment Protection Reform,Enforcement in Collective Agreements and Worker Flows

We analyze a reform of notice periods for employer‐initiated separations in Sweden, which reduced the notice periods for newly hired older workers substantially but implied minor or no changes in the advance notices for younger workers. The reform was initiated at different times depending on collective agreement. These circumstances provide ample opportunity for the identification of its effects. Our findings indicate heterogeneous effects on hirings and separations across collective agreements.     

Work‐Related Training and the Probability of Transitioning from Non‐Permanent to Permanent Employment

It is widely believed that work‐related training increases a worker's probability of moving up the job‐quality ladder. This is usually couched in terms of effects on wages, but it has also been argued that training increases the probability of moving from non‐permanent forms of employment to more permanent employment. This hypothesis is tested using nationally representative panel data for Australia, a country where the incidence of non‐permanent employment, and especially casual employment, is high by international standards. While a positive association between participation in work‐related training and the subsequent probability of moving from either casual or fixed‐term contract employment to permanent employment is observed among men, this is shown to be driven not by a causal impact of training on transitions but by differences between those who do and do not receive training, that is selection bias.     

The Structure of the Permanent Job Wage Premium: Evidence from Europe

Using individual longitudinal European Community Household Panel data for thirteen countries during 1995–2001 and fixed‐effects models, I find for men, the permanent job wage premium is higher for younger workers and those who were noncitizens or foreign born; for women, the premium is higher for young workers, short‐tenure workers, and those who were noncitizens or foreign born. Thus, the gain to permanent employment is higher for those with less experience in the domestic labor market.     

The Effects of Employment Protection for Obese People

This paper uses a 1993 court case, Cook v. Rhode Island, in conjunction with the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to estimate the impact of employment protection on the labor market outcomes of obese people. In Cook, a federal appeals court ruled for the first time that obesity can be covered under the ADA. Using data from 1988 to 1999, I estimate that Cook increased employment for obese women and men relative to those whose weight was in the recommended range on the order of four and two percentage points, respectively. The results provide new evidence that obesity has important labor market implications.     

Transitions into Permanent Employment in Spain: An Empirical Analysis for Young Workers

This article analyses the transitions into permanent employment of a sample of young temporary employees in Spain for the period 1996–2003. For this purpose, we apply multiple‐spell duration techniques to a longitudinal dataset of temporary workers obtained from Social Security registers. Our main findings are as follows. First, the transitions from a temporary contract into unemployment and into another temporary contract are very high when compared with transitions into permanent employment. Second, the entry into permanent employment — although slightly increasing with tenure at the temporary contract — is very low; the only exception is that of semi‐skilled and unskilled individuals, who are particularly likely to enter into permanent employment at the 24th and the 36th month of tenure (respectively). Third, we find that there exists a substantial proportion of workers with unobservable characteristics that make them show high exit rates from temporary employment and, at the same time, a rapid exit from unemployment — while the remaining individuals exit from unemployment more slowly, particularly those who are receiving unemployment benefits.     

Job Disamenities, Job Satisfaction, Quit Intentions, and Actual Separations: Putting the Pieces Together

We analyze the role of adverse working conditions in the determination of employees' quit behavior. Our data contain both detailed information on perceived job disamenities, job satisfaction, and quit intentions from a cross-section survey, and information on employees' actual job switches from longitudinal register data that can be linked to the survey. We show that job dissatisfaction that arises in adverse working conditions is related to job search and this in turn is related to actual job switches.     

Overskilling,Job Insecurity,and Career Mobility

This paper uses longitudinal data from Australia to examine the extent to which overskilling—the extent to which work‐related skills and abilities are utilized in current employment—is a transitory phenomenon. The results suggest that while overskilled workers are much more likely to want to quit their current job, they are also relatively unconfident of finding an improved job match. Furthermore, some of the greater mobility observed among overskilled workers is due to involuntary job separations, and even where job separations are voluntary, the majority of moves do not result in improved skills matches.