An examination of occupational mobility among full-time workers As workers approached mid-career in the late 1990s, they saw an increase in their occupational stability; however, mobility rates varied between men and women in certain occupations (original) (raw)

Occupational and industrial mobility in the United States

Labour Economics, 2007

Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we investigate occupational and industrial mobility of individuals over the 1969-1980 and 1981-1993 periods in the U.S. We find that workers changed both occupations and industries more frequently in the later period. For example, occupational mobility for men ranged from 15 to 20 percent per year during the first period and from 20 to 25 percent per year over the second. We also find that, for men, occupational and industrial changes are associated with lower earnings, though this effect has lessened somewhat over time, while for women the results are mixed. Our results also indicate that older and less educated workers are less likely to shift occupation or industry, as are better paid men but not better paid women.

How Much Mobility? Careers, Promotions, and Wages

2015

The objective of this paper is to study the determinants of job mobility and the effect of job mobility on wages, considering not only the workers ’ career between firms, but also within firms, using a longitudinal matching employer-employee data set. The results obtained show a negative relationship between tenure and the probability of exit and that the new jobs tend to end early. Moreover, the career advancement within the firm has a negative impact on the probability to exit. Concerning wages, job separations can have a positive impact on wage growth, especially for the younger workers and also for industry changes. This shows that the workers ’ movements between employers and industries are important to enhance their career prospects.

Careers, Labor Market Structure, and Socioeconomic Achievement

American Journal of Sociology, 1977

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Overeducation, undereducation, and the theory of career mobility

Applied Economics, 2004

The theory of career mobility (Sicherman and Galor 1990) claims that wage penalties for overeducated workers are compensated by better promotion prospects. Sicherman (1991) was able to confirm this theory in an empirical study. However, the controls for the opposing phenomenon of undereducation used in his tests produced unconvincing results, for which no sound theoretical explanations were given. The only re-test yet conducted (Robst 1995) also produced ambiguous results. In the present paper, we estimate random effects models to analyze relative wage growth using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. We find that overeducated workers have markedly lower relative wage growth rates than correctly allocated workers, while undereducated workers enjoy higher rates of relative wage growth. Our results cast serious doubt on the career mobility model, at least with respect to the overeducation issue. In view of the acknowledged positive correlation between access to training and upward career mobility, the plausibility of our results is supported by the finding that overeducated workers have less access to formal and informal on-the-job training, while undereducated workers are more likely to be admitted to such programs.

Rising Intragenerational Occupational Mobility in the United States, 1969 to 2011

American Sociological Review, 2017

Despite the theoretical importance of intragenerational mobility and its connection to intergenerational mobility, no study since the 1970s has documented trends in intragenerational occupational mobility. The present article fills this intellectual gap by presenting evidence of an increasing trend in intragenerational mobility in the United States from 1969 to 2011. We decompose the trend using a nested occupational classification scheme that distinguishes between disaggregated micro-classes and progressively more aggregated meso-classes, macro-classes, and manual and nonmanual sectors. Log-linear analysis reveals that mobility increased across the occupational structure at nearly all levels of aggregation, especially after the early 1990s. Controlling for structural changes in occupational distributions modifies, but does not substantially alter, these findings. Trends are qualitatively similar for men and women. We connect increasing mobility to other macro-economic trends dating back to the 1970s, including changing labor force composition, technologies, employment relations, and industrial structures. We reassert the sociological significance of intragenerational mobility and discuss how increasing variability in occupational transitions within careers may counteract or mask trends in intergenerational mobility, across occupations and across more broadly construed social classes.

Job Mobility and Wage Mobility of High- and Low-paid Workers

Journal of contextual economics, 2007

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Occupational and Job Mobility in the US

Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 2007

We propose a new methodology to measure worker mobility across occupations and jobs in the US, building on the limited longitudinal dimension of monthly CPS data. For the period 1979-2006, we find that about 3.5% of male workers employed in two consecutive months report different three-digit occupations. This rate is procyclical, mildly rising in the 1980s and falling after 1995. We also revise upward current estimates of aggregate job-tojob mobility since 1994, from 2.7% to 3.2% of employment per month. Despite extreme similarity of average levels and time-series behavior, occupational and job mobility are only weakly correlated.