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Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain

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  • P. Jenkins, Stephen
  • Cappellari, Lorenzo

Abstract

We provide new evidence about earnings and labour market volatility in Britain over the period 1992–2008, and for women as well as men. (Most research about volatility refers to earnings volatility for US men.) We show that earnings volatility declined slightly for both men and women over the period but the changes are not statistically significant. When we look at labour market volatility, i.e. including in the calculations individuals with zero earnings as well as employees with positive earnings, there is a marked and statistically significant decline for both women and men, with the fall greater for men. Using variance decompositions, we show that the fall in labour market volatility is largely accounted for by changes in employment attachment rates. Labour market volatility trends in Britain, and what contributes to them, differ from their US counterparts in several respects.

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  • P. Jenkins, Stephen & Cappellari, Lorenzo, 2013. "Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2013-10
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    Cited by:

    1. Riphahn, Regina T. & Schnitzlein, Daniel D., 2016. "Wage mobility in East and West Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 11-34.
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    3. Andreas Georgiadis & Alan Manning, 2014. "The Volatility of Earnings: Evidence from High-Frequency Firm-Level Data," CEP Discussion Papers dp1290, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    4. Paula Garda & Volker Ziemann, 2014. "Economic Policies and Microeconomic Stability: A Literature Review and Some Empirics," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1115, OECD Publishing.
    5. Cappellari, Lorenzo & Jenkins, Stephen P., 2014. "Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain, with a transatlantic comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 201-211.
    6. Cappellari, Lorenzo & Jenkins, Stephen P., 2014. "Earnings and labour market volatility in Britain, with a transatlantic comparison," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 201-211.

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    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

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