Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T13:04:14.165Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

JOBS BEFORE COLLEGE COMPLETION AND CAREER BUILDING OF YOUNG WORKERS THROUGH JOB SWITCHING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2018

Toshihiko Mukoyama  and
Gang Zhang
Toshihiko Mukoyama
Affiliation:
Georgetown University and University of Virginia
Gang Zhang*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
Address correspondence to: Gang Zhang, Department of Economics, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400182, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4182, USA; e-mail: gz5ud@virginia.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We analyze job switching and wage growth of young workers, separately considering the jobs experienced by workers before and after college completion. These two groups of jobs consist of very different occupational compositions. Workers with many jobs before college completion (JBCC) and with little or no job experiences before college completion have similar subsequent wage paths. These facts can be interpreted that JBCC contribute less to career building compared to the ones after college completion. If we disregard all JBCC, the number of jobs that are experienced by workers before age 35 are about three jobs fewer than the total number of jobs.

Keywords

Job MobilityJobs Before College CompletionLife Cycle
Type
Articles
Information
Macroeconomic Dynamics , Volume 23 , Issue 7 , October 2019 , pp. 2892 - 2940
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank an Associate Editor and two anonymous referees for their insightful comments, Dajun Lin and Chris Ruhm for their suggestions, Steve McClaskie for their help on NLSY data, and Nick Embrey for his editorial help. Mukoyama thanks the Bankard Fund for Political Economy for financial support and Zhang thanks the Steer Family Endowed Fund for financial support. All errors are ours.

References

REFERENCES

Acemoglu, Daron and Autor, David (2011) Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings. In Ashenfelter, Orley and Card, David (eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 4, pp. 1043–1171. Amsterdam: Elsevier.10.1016/S0169-7218(11)02410-5Google Scholar
Altonji, Joseph G., Smith, Anthony A. Jr., and Vidangos, Ivan (2013) Modeling earnings dynamics. Econometrica 81, 1395–1454.Google Scholar
Autor, David, Levy, Frank, and Murnane, Richard (2003) The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical exploration. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, 1279–1333.10.1162/003355303322552801Google Scholar
Bagger, Jesper, Fontaine, François, Postel-Vinay, Fabien, and Robin, Jean-Marc (2014) Tenure, experience, human capital, and wages: A tractable equilibrium search model of wage dynamics. American Economic Review 104, 1551–96.10.1257/aer.104.6.1551Google Scholar
Barlevy, Gadi (2002) The sullying effect of recessions. Review of Economic Studies 69, 65–96.10.1111/1467-937X.00198Google Scholar
Baum, Charles L. and Ruhm, Christopher J. (2016) The changing benefits of early work experience. Southern Economic Journal 83, 343–363.10.1002/soej.12157Google Scholar
Belley, Philippe and Lochner, Lance (2007) The changing role of family income and ability in determining educational achievement. Journal of Human Capital 1, 37–89.10.1086/524674Google Scholar
Esteban-Pretel, Julen and Fujimoto, Junichi (2014) Life-cycle labor search with stochastic match quality. International Economic Review 55, 575–599.10.1111/iere.12062Google Scholar
Gathmann, Christina and Schönberg, Uta (2010) How general is human capital? A task-based approach. Journal of Labor Economics 28, 1–49.10.1086/649786Google Scholar
Häkkinen, Iida (2006) Working while enrolled in a university: Does it pay? Labour Economics 13, 167–189.10.1016/j.labeco.2004.10.003Google Scholar
Hall, Robert E. (1982) The importance of lifetime jobs in the U.S. economy. American Economic Review 72, 716–724.Google Scholar
Hotz, V. Joseph, Xu, Lixin Colin, Tieda, Marta, and Ahituv, Avner (2002) Are there returns to the wages of young men from working while in school? Review of Economics and Statistics 84, 221–236.10.1162/003465302317411497Google Scholar
Hyatt, Henry R. and McEntarfer, Erika (2012) Job-to-Job Flows and the Business Cycle. CES discussion paper 12-4.10.2139/ssrn.2017672Google Scholar
Jung, Philip and Kuhn, Moritz (2017) Earnings losses and labor mobility over the life cycle. Journal of the European Economic Association (forthcoming).10.1093/jeea/jvy014Google Scholar
Kambourov, Gueorgui and Manovskii, Iourii (2009) Occupational specificity of human capital. International Economic Review 50, 63–115.10.1111/j.1468-2354.2008.00524.xGoogle Scholar
Light, Audrey (2001) In-school work experience and the returns to schooling. Journal of Labor Economics 19, 65–93.10.1086/209980Google Scholar
Light, Audrey (2005) Job mobility and wage growth: Evidence from the NLSY79. Monthly Labor Review 128, 33–39.Google Scholar
Lise, Jeremy (2013) On-the-job search and precautionary savings. Review of Economic Studies 80, 1086–1113.10.1093/restud/rds042Google Scholar
Lochner, Lance and Monge-Naranjo, Alexander (2012) Credit constraints in education. Annual Review of Economics 4, 225–256.10.1146/annurev-economics-080511-110920Google Scholar
Low, Hamish, Meghir, Costas, and Pistaferri, Luigi (2010) Wage risk and employment risk over the life cycle. American Economic Review 100, 1432–1467.10.1257/aer.100.4.1432Google Scholar
Menzio, Guido, Telyukova, Irina A., and Visschers, Ludo (2016) Directed search over the life cycle. Review of Economic Dynamics 19, 38–62.10.1016/j.red.2015.03.002Google Scholar
Mukoyama, Toshihiko (2014) The cyclicality of job-to-job transitions and its implications for aggregate productivity. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 39, 1–17.10.1016/j.jedc.2013.12.004Google Scholar
Ruhm, Christopher J. (1997) Is high school employment consumption or investment? Journal of Labor Economics 15, 735–776.10.1086/209844Google Scholar
Tjaden, Volker and Wellschmied, Felix (2014) Quantifying the contribution of search to wage inequality. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 6, 134–161.Google Scholar
Topel, Robert H. and Ward, Michael P. (1992) Job mobility and the careers of young men. Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, 439–479.10.2307/2118478Google Scholar
Yamaguchi, Shintaro (2012) Tasks and heterogeneous human capital. Journal of Labor Economics 30, 1–53.10.1086/662066Google Scholar