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Title: Effects of Job Displacement on Younger Workers
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Gustafson, Cynthia Karen
Effects of Job Displacement on Younger Workers
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California - Berkeley, 1999
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Displaced Workers; Divorce; Earnings; Family Structure; Family Studies; Job Tenure; Job Turnover; Labor Economics; Labor Market Outcomes; Mobility, Job; Modeling, Fixed Effects

This dissertation explores the effects of job displacement on younger workers. A job displacement is commonly defined as a job separation that results from no fault of the worker. Workers, for example, are displaced if their plant closes or if they are laid off without recall; displaced workers are not workers who were fired.

Chapter 2 explores the long-term effects of job displacement on labor market outcomes and how these effects depend on post-displacement mobility across location, industry, and occupation. Chapter 3 explores the effects of displacement on marriage, divorce, and separation rates, along with fertility.

I use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a dataset rarely used in research on displacement, to construct a group of displaced workers and a comparison group containing non-displaced workers. Using a generalized difference-in-differences model that includes individual fixed effects, I estimate what displaced workers labor market outcomes and family structure would have been had they not been displaced.

I find that displacement has a large, negative effect on employment, earnings, and hours worked even six years after displacement. Six years after displacement, nonemployment is 8 percent higher among displaced workers than among their non-displaced counterparts. Among individuals who return to work, displacement decreases long-term earnings and hours worked by 8 and 4 percent, respectively. The long-term earnings and hours worked reductions for displaced workers who had at least two years of tenure when they were displaced are 15 and 8 percent, respectively. Long-term earnings reductions are 8 percent for immobile workers but only 4 percent for workers who change locations. Displaced workers who switch either industry or occupation suffer larger short-term earnings losses from displacement, yet contrary to previous findings the switchers and stayers have similar long-term costs.

The effects of displacement on women's family structure are unclear. For men, however, displacement permanently decreases their flow into marriage, while largely increasing their flow out of marriage. Both the probabilities of divorce and separation double post-displacement, yet these effects appear to only be temporary. Displacement is estimated to permanently decrease male's probability of having a child by about 20 percent.

Bibliography Citation
Gustafson, Cynthia Karen. Effects of Job Displacement on Younger Workers. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California - Berkeley, 1999.