IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v91y2025ics1043951x25000379.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When economic downturn hits bottom workers: Labor market entry conditions and long-term career effects

Author

Listed:
  • Jiang, Ye
  • Zhang, Tonglong

Abstract

Recessions can have enduring negative consequences on labor markets, yet their impacts on bottom workers employed in flexible forms remain underexplored. This study provides empirical evidence on how adverse labor market entry conditions persistently affect the careers of bottom workers, specifically Chinese rural-urban migrants. Baseline estimations reveal that increases in national or regional unemployment rates significantly reduce the career earnings and labor supply of these migrants. The persistent adverse effects are largely driven by long-term penalties stemming from initial job downgrading at labor market entry. Additionally, this study examines heterogeneities in career effects, uncovering substantial impacts on individual life trajectories, such as delayed marriage and fertility plans. These findings have important policy implications and enhance our understanding of the long-term effects of macroeconomic fluctuations on vulnerable labor cohorts.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiang, Ye & Zhang, Tonglong, 2025. "When economic downturn hits bottom workers: Labor market entry conditions and long-term career effects," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:91:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25000379
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102379
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X25000379
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102379?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor market entry conditions; Bottom workers; Rural-urban migrants; Earnings; Employment; Long-term effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:91:y:2025:i:c:s1043951x25000379. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.