THE WAGE EFFECTS OF CUMULATIVE JOB MOBILITY

This analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows that cumulative job mobility had statistically significant effects on wages in the years 1979-88. The direction of the wage effects (positive or negative) and their magnitude varied depending on the type of cumulative mobility examined: employee-initiated versus employer-initiated separations, economic versus family-related quits, layoffs versus discharges. The results also indicate that although men and women had different mobility histories-men, for example, had been discharged more often than women, and women had quit for family-related reasons more often than men-the wage effects of each type of cumulative mobility (economic quits, family-related quits, layoffs, and discharges) were similar for men and women.