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Title: Stepping Stone versus Dead End Jobs: Occupational Pathways out of Working Poverty in the NLSY 1979-2006
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Mouw, Ted Kalleberg, Arne L. |
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Stepping Stone versus Dead End Jobs: Occupational Pathways out of Working Poverty in the NLSY 1979-2006 Presented: Atlanta GA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2010 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: American Sociological Association Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Mobility, Economic; Occupational Prestige; Occupations; Wages Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. In this paper we test for the existence of pathways of upward mobility for low wage workers by studying patterns of intragenerational occupational mobility in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) from 1979-2006. We argue that stepping stone links of upward mobility between specific pairs of occupations can be identified by whether or not the accumulation of experience increases the probability of movement between these occupations. In contrast, a dead end job is one which both pays low wages and where the accumulation of occupational experience reduces the probability of upward mobility. We use two data sets to detect potential stepping stone links between occupations. First, we measure the skill similarity between occupations using data on occupational skill requirements from the O*NET occupational database. Second, we use data on occupational mobility from matched samples of the Current Population Survey (CPS) to identify possible career ladders based on either significant one-way flows between occupations or positive age effects on occupational transitions. We test these links using data on career histories from the NLSY. A key aspect of our approach is an empirical strategy that simultaneously models wage mobility (a dichotomous indicator of low versus high pay) and occupational mobility (among detailed 3-digit occupations). In order to estimate our models with detailed occupations and multiple observations for each individual, we first randomly sample from the choice set of occupations and then use a latent-class conditional logit model (Train 2008) to allow for individual heterogeneity. |
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Bibliography Citation
Mouw, Ted and Arne L. Kalleberg. "Stepping Stone versus Dead End Jobs: Occupational Pathways out of Working Poverty in the NLSY 1979-2006." Presented: Atlanta GA, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, August 2010. |