IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qmw/qmwecw/447.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Low-Pay Mobility in the Swiss Labor Market

Author

Listed:
  • Augustin de Coulon

    (CEP, London School of Economics and Political Science)

  • Boris A. Zürcher

    (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, Switzerland)

Abstract

This paper uses a panel of 7617 individuals drawn from the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLFS) to study i) low-pay incidence and ii) individual transition probabilities at the lower end of the wage distribution. In a first step, various raw transition probabilities are computed for the period between 1992 and 1998, and some descriptive and comparative statistics on wage mobility are presented. In the second step, the determinants of low-pay incidence are estimated, and in a third step, the determinants of transitions into and out of the low-pay segment are analyzed. This analysis is based on a bivariate probit model which takes into account the potential endogeneity of the initial state. With regard to low-pay incidence the results to a large extent confirm previous ones obtained by standard wage equations. Low-pay incidence is influenced by certain personal characteristics, but as well by the affiliation to particular economic sectors. When investigating mobility, it is found that low-pay spells are both, transitory and persistent events. On the one hand, many workers low-paid at some point in time succeed to escape the low-pay segment within a two-year period. For those remaining low-paid, on the other hand, our results suggest that state dependence rather than heterogeneity seems to affect more the persistence in low-pay status.

Suggested Citation

  • Augustin de Coulon & Boris A. Zürcher, 2001. "Low-Pay Mobility in the Swiss Labor Market," Working Papers 447, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:447
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sef/media/econ/research/workingpapers/2001/items/wp447.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:bla:econom:v:67:y:2000:i:268:p:477-97 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:bla:econom:v:47:y:1980:i:187:p:247-83 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Mary Jo Bane & David T. Ellwood, 1986. "Slipping into and out of Poverty: The Dynamics of Spells," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-23.
    4. Lorenzo Cappellari, 2000. "Low‐wage mobility in the Italian labour market," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(3/4), pages 264-290, May.
    5. Meng, Chun-Lo & Schmidt, Peter, 1985. "On the Cost of Partial Observability in the Bivariate Probit Model," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(1), pages 71-85, February.
    6. Mark B. Stewart & Joanna K. Swaffield, 1999. "Low Pay Dynamics and Transition Probabilities," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 66(261), pages 23-42, February.
    7. Dorothé Bonjour & Michael Gerfin, 1995. "Einkommensungleichheit zwischen Frauen und Männern. Eine ökonometrische Analyse der Schweizer Arbeitskräfteerhebung: Kommentar," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 131(IV), pages 701-710, December.
    8. Shorrocks, Anthony, 1978. "Income inequality and income mobility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 376-393, December.
    9. Dorothe Bonjour & Michael Gerfin, 1995. "Einkommensungleichheit zwischen Frauen und M nnern. Eine konomische Analyse der Schweizer Arbeitskr fteerhebung: Kommentar," Diskussionsschriften dp9503, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    10. Shorrocks, A F, 1976. "Income Mobility and the Markov Assumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 86(343), pages 566-578, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Augustin de Coulon & Boris A. Zürcher, 2001. "Low-Pay Mobility in the Swiss Labor Market," Working Papers 447, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    2. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Gaston Yalonetzky, 2016. "An individual-based approach to measurement of multiple-period mobility for nominal and ordinal variables," Working Papers 65, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    3. Ira N. Gang & Kseniia Gatskova & John Landon-Lane & Myeong-Su Yun, 2018. "Vulnerability to Poverty: Tajikistan During and After the Global Financial Crisis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 138(3), pages 925-951, August.
    4. Ambra Poggi, 2007. "Does persistence of social exclusion exist in Spain?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(1), pages 53-72, April.
    5. Núñez Velázquez, José Javier, 2009. "Estado actual y nuevas aproximaciones a la medición de la pobreza/Current Status and New Approaches to the Measurement of Poverty," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 27, pages 325-346, Agosto.
    6. Ulrich Rendtel & Rolf Langeheine & Roland Berntsen, 1992. "The Estimation of Poverty-Dynamics Using Different Household Income Measures," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 56a, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    7. Sami Bibi & Jean-Yves Duclos & Abdelkrim Araar, 2014. "Mobility, taxation and welfare," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(3), pages 503-527, March.
    8. Marjan, MAES, 2008. "Poverty persistence among Belgian elderly in the transition from work to retirement : an empirical analysis," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2008042, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    9. Carlos Barros & Isabel Proenca & Jose Cabral Vieira, 2005. "Low-wage employment in Portugal: a mixed logit approach," Labor and Demography 0508001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    11. Dimitris Pavlopoulos & Didier Fouarge, 2010. "Escaping low pay: do male labour market entrants stand a chance?," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(8), pages 908-927, November.
    12. Francisco Silva & José Vieira & António Pimenta & João Teixeira, 2018. "Duration of low-wage employment: a study based on a survival model," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 45(2), pages 286-299, February.
    13. Lorenzo Cappellari, 2007. "Earnings mobility among Italian low-paid workers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 465-482, April.
    14. Grün, Carola & Mahringer, Helmut & Rhein, Thomas, 2011. "Low-wage jobs: a means for employment integration of the unemployed? : evidence from administrative data in Germany and Austria," IAB-Discussion Paper 201101, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    15. Maes, Marjan, 2008. "Poverty persistence among Belgian elderly: true or spurious?," ISER Working Paper Series 2008-24, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. Jose Cabral Vieira & Antonio Menezes & Patricia Gabriel, 2005. "Low pay, higher pay and job quality: empirical evidence for Portugal," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(8), pages 505-511.
    17. Paulo Madruga & José Vieira, 2004. "Regions and Low-Wage Mobility in Portugal," ERSA conference papers ersa04p55, European Regional Science Association.
    18. Luis Diaz-Serrano & Jose A. Cabral Vieira, 2005. "Low-pay higher pay and job satisfaction within the European Union: empirical evidence from fourteen countries," Economics Department Working Paper Series n1560405, Department of Economics, National University of Ireland - Maynooth.
    19. Dimitris Pavlopoulos & Ruud Muffels & Jeroen K. Vermunt, 2009. "Training and Low‐pay Mobility: The Case of the UK and the Netherlands," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 23(s1), pages 37-59, March.
    20. Gordon Anderson & Oliver Linton & Jasmin Thomas, 2017. "Similarity, dissimilarity and exceptionality: generalizing Gini’s transvariation to measure “differentness” in many distributions," METRON, Springer;Sapienza Università di Roma, vol. 75(2), pages 161-180, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Low-pay; Wage mobility; Transition models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities

    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:qmw:qmwecw:447. 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: Nicholas Owen The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Nicholas Owen to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deqmwuk.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.