IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/0161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Middle-Age Job Mobility: Its Determinants and Consequences

Author

Listed:
  • Ann P. Bartel
  • George J. Borjas

Abstract

Our paper uses the wealth of information available in the NLS to expand on previous work in several ways. First, we investigate whether there is a meaningful distinction among types of job separations. Traditional analysis has categorized job separations as either employee-initiated (quits) or employer-initiated (layoffs). We question whether this dichotomy is correct. The National Longitudinal Survey data is especially useful for studying the relationship between wages and the probability of quitting. Most theoretical work on the determinants of job separation concludes that the probability of changing jobs is related to a reservation wage. The NLS data set allows us to test this relationship since it includes information on the individual's "hypothetical wage"-- that is, the wage required to induce the individual to accept another job. Given this information, we are able to compare the effects of different measures of the individual's price of time (e.g. the current wage and the reservation wage) on the probability of quitting. In addition, we analyze the role of human capital variables, job related characteristics and family background in the determination of job mobility. The analysis of the determinants of job separations in the cross-section naturally leads to an investigation of the relationship between previous separations and future separations. In particular, we consider whether such a relationship exists, and whether the nature of previous separations is a good predictor of the nature of future separations. Finally, we analyze the effects of job mobility on earnings and on job satisfaction. We distinguish between the immediate gains to mobility and the future gains to mobility, and also consider whether the nature of the separation is an important determinant of the consequences of job mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Ann P. Bartel & George J. Borjas, 1977. "Middle-Age Job Mobility: Its Determinants and Consequences," NBER Working Papers 0161, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0161.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John F. Burton Jr. & John E. Parker, 1969. "Interindustry Variations in Voluntary Labor Mobility," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 22(2), pages 199-216, January.
    2. J. J. McCall, 1970. "Economics of Information and Job Search," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(1), pages 113-126.
    3. Gary S. Becker & Elisabeth M. Landes & Robert T. Michael, 1976. "Economics of Marital Instability," NBER Working Papers 0153, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Parsons, Donald O, 1972. "Specific Human Capital: An Application to Quit Rates and Layoff Rates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(6), pages 1120-1143, Nov.-Dec..
    5. Ann P. Bartel, 1980. "Job Mobility and Earnings Growth," NBER Working Papers 0117, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Walter Y. Oi, 1962. "Labor as a Quasi-Fixed Factor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(6), pages 538-538.
    7. Larry A. Sjaastad, 1970. "The Costs and Returns of Human Migration," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Harry W. Richardson (ed.), Regional Economics, chapter 9, pages 115-133, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Robert E. Hall, 1970. "Why Is the Unemployment Rate So High at Full Employment?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 1(3), pages 369-410.
    9. George J. Borjas & Jacob Mincer, 1976. "The Distribution of Earnings Profiles in Longitudinal Data," NBER Working Papers 0143, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Feldstein, Martin S, 1976. "Temporary Layoffs in the Theory of Unemployment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(5), pages 937-957, October.
    11. Lippman, Steven A & McCall, John J, 1976. "The Economics of Job Search: A Survey," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 14(3), pages 347-368, September.
    12. Pencavel, John H, 1972. "Wages, Specific Training, and Labor Turnover in US Manufacturing Industries," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 13(1), pages 53-64, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ann P. Bartel & George J. Borjas, 1981. "Wage Growth and Job Turnover: An Empirical Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in Labor Markets, pages 65-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. George J. Borjas, 1981. "Job Mobility and Earnings over the Life Cycle," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 34(3), pages 365-376, April.
    3. Jonathan Gruber, 1998. "Health Insurance and the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 6762, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ann P. Bartel, 1980. "Wages, Nonwage Job Characteristics, and Labor Mobility," NBER Working Papers 0552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Ann P. Bartel, 1980. "The Economics of Migration: An Empirical Analysis with Special Referenceto the Role of Job Mobility," NBER Working Papers 0198, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Robert L. Clark & Joseph F. Quinn, 1999. "Effects of Pensions on Labor Markets and Retirement," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 431, Boston College Department of Economics.
    7. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 1993. "Pension portability and labor mobility : Evidence from the survey of income and program participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 299-323, March.
    8. Brigitte C. Madrian, 1994. "Employment-Based Health Insurance and Job Mobility: Is there Evidence of Job-Lock?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 27-54.
    9. Eric Thompson & Ellen J. Hahn & Glenn Blomquist & John Garen & Don Mullineaux & Nola Ogunro & Mary K. Rayens, 2008. "Smoke‐Free Laws And Employee Turnover," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(3), pages 351-359, July.
    10. Jonathan Gruber & Brigitte C. Madrian, 1993. "Limited Insurance Portability and Job Mobility: The Effects of Public Policy on Job-Lock," NBER Working Papers 4479, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Ashok Thomas & Luca Spataro, 2013. "Pension funds and Market Efficiency: A review," Discussion Papers 2013/164, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    12. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1987. "Pensions, Efficiency Wages, and Job Mobility," NBER Working Papers 2426, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dale T. Mortensen, 1978. "Specific Capital, Bargaining, and Labor Turnover," Discussion Papers 320, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Dale T. Mortensen, 1977. "Specific Human Capital and Labor Turnover," Discussion Papers 289, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    4. Parent, Daniel, 1996. "Survol des contributions théoriques et empiriques liées au capital humain," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 72(3), pages 315-356, septembre.
    5. Marie-Christine Challier & Mohamed Jellal, 1992. "Analyses du chômage de longue durée et du chômage récurrent le cas de la France," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 105(4), pages 55-72.
    6. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:641-692 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Bruce J. Chapman & Heather Prior, 1986. "Sex Differences in Labour Turnover in the Australian Public Service," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 62(4), pages 497-505, December.
    8. W. Kip Viscusi, 1979. "Sorting Models of Labor Mobility, Turnover, and Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 0371, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Parent, Daniel, 1996. "Survol des contributions théoriques et empiriques liées au capital humain," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 72(3), pages 315-356, septembre.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2439-2483 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Estimating the Employer Switching Costs and Wage Responses of Forward-Looking Engineers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 357-412, April.
    12. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    13. Cuéllar Martín, Jaime & Martín-Román, Ángel L. & Moral, Alfonso, 2017. "A composed error model decomposition and spatial analysis of local unemployment," MPRA Paper 79783, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Albrecht, James & Anderson, Axel & Vroman, Susan, 2010. "Search by committee," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1386-1407, July.
    15. Austan Goolsbee & Chad Syverson, 2023. "Monopsony Power in Higher Education: A Tale of Two Tracks," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(S1), pages 257-290.
    16. Wolfgang Pollan, 1980. "Wage rigidity and the structure of the Austrian manufacturing industry," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 116(4), pages 697-728, December.
    17. Alba-Ramirez, Alfonso & Arranz, Jose M. & Munoz-Bullon, Fernando, 2007. "Exits from unemployment: Recall or new job," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 788-810, October.
    18. Simon Jäger & Benjamin Schoefer & Josef Zweimüller, 2023. "Marginal Jobs and Job Surplus: A Test of the Efficiency of Separations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(3), pages 1265-1303.
    19. Saša Zorc & Ilia Tsetlin, 2020. "Deadlines, Offer Timing, and the Search for Alternatives," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 68(3), pages 927-948, May.
    20. Esther Gal-Or & Mordechai Gal-Or & Anthony Dukes, 2007. "Optimal information revelation in procurement schemes," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(2), pages 400-418, June.
    21. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    22. Webber, Douglas A., 2015. "Firm market power and the earnings distribution," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 123-134.
    23. Dan A. Black & Lars Skipper & Jeffrey A. Smith & Jeffrey Andrew Smith, 2023. "Firm Training," CESifo Working Paper Series 10268, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:0161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.