Atypical Work and Employment Continuity

Atypical employment arrangements have long been criticized as offering more precarious and unstable work than regular employment. Using data from the Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangement Supplement and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort, we determine whether workers who take such jobs rather than regular employment, or the alternative of continued job search, experience greater or lesser employment continuity. Controlling for unobserved individual heterogeneity, the advantage of regular work over atypical work and atypical work over continued joblessness dissipates.