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Careers within Firms: Occupational Mobility over the Life Cycle

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  • Eliza Forsythe

    (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Abstract

With falling labor market dynamism in the United States, opportunities within firms take on increasing importance in young workers’ career progression. Developing a variety of occupational ranking metrics, I show that occupational mobility within firms follows a standard life cycle pattern in which the frequency, distance, and wage return from mobility falls with age. However, when upward and downward mobility are considered separately, the average magnitude of directional mobility increases through middle age. I find that wage growth for young workers deteriorated substantially in the first decade of the 2000s, primarily driven by a reduction in wage growth within firms. Encouragingly, wage growth has improved markedly for young workers since 2012.

Suggested Citation

  • Eliza Forsythe, 2018. "Careers within Firms: Occupational Mobility over the Life Cycle," Upjohn Working Papers 18-286, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:upj:weupjo:18-286
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    Cited by:

    1. Christian vom Lehn & Cache Ellsworth & Zachary Kroff, 2022. "Reconciling Occupational Mobility in the Current Population Survey," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(4), pages 1005-1051.
    2. Forsythe, Eliza, 2023. "Occupational Job Ladders within and between Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 16682, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Boyan Jovanovic & Sai Ma, 2022. "Uncertainty and Growth Disasters," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 44, pages 33-64, April.
    4. Mask, Joshua, 2023. "Salary history bans and healing scars from past recessions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Bryn Lampe & Catherine de Fontenay & Jessica Nugent & Patrick Jomini, 2022. "Climbing the Jobs Ladder Slower: Young People in a Weak Labour Market," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 55(1), pages 40-70, March.
    6. Varga, Júlia & Csillag, Márton, 2023. "A foglalkozási mobilitás változása Magyarországon két évtized adatai alapján [Changes in occupational mobility in Hungary over two decades]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(12), pages 1338-1360.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Careers; occupations; youth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

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