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Source: Public Productivity and Management Review
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Crewson, Philip E.
Are the Best and the Brightest Fleeing Public Sector Employment? Evidence From the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
Public Productivity and Management Review 20,4 (June 1997): 363-371
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Sage Publications
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Exits; Occupations; Private Sector; Public Sector

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Several explanations have been offered to support the assumption that the federal government cannot attract or retain quality employees. These explanations include perceptions that quality is a low priority in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) (Rosen, 1986), poor pay drives away the most capable (Light, 1992; Packard, 1986; U.S. Government Accounting Office [GAO], 1989), ineffective planning precipitates losses (GAO, 1989), and the federal government is unable to compete with the allure of the private sector (Levine, 1986). Many of the same arguments could be used to predict a similar crisis in state and local government. Past discussion of the quality issue, however, has generally been anecdotal, limited to personnel surveys, or based on evidence restricted to technical and engineering occupations (Lane and Wolf, 1990). The cumulative outcome from these past discussions communicates to the polity that civil servants are inferior to private sector employees. This notion exists even though its basis in impressionistic employee surveys and anecdotal proofs is far from conclusive evidence of a crisis. Indeed, although recruiting and retaining quality employees serves as the bedrock of American governance, some have observed that research on this issue has been sporadic and, in some cases, lacking in scientific rigor (Light, 1992). This study responds to this dearth of information by using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to evaluate the quality of exits from the civil service. Although past studies have focused on the federal employment sector, this analysis broadens the evaluation of exit quality by also examining state and local public employee exits. Copyright 1997 Sage Publications, Inc.
Bibliography Citation
Crewson, Philip E. "Are the Best and the Brightest Fleeing Public Sector Employment? Evidence From the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth." Public Productivity and Management Review 20,4 (June 1997): 363-371.