IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v57y2004i4p560-578.html

Escaping Low Earnings: The Role of Employer Characteristics and Changes

Author

Listed:
  • Harry J. Holzer
  • Julia I. Lane
  • Lars Vilhuber

Abstract

Using a unique dataset based on individual Unemployment Insurance wage records for Illinois in the 1990s that are matched to other Census data, the authors analyze the extent to which escape from or entry into low earnings among adult workers was associated with changes in their employers and firm characteristics. The results show considerable mobility into and out of low earnings status, even for adults. They indicate that job changes were an important part of the process by which workers escaped or entered low-wage status, and that changes in employer characteristics help to account for these job changes. Matches between personal and firm characteristics also contributed to observed earnings outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Harry J. Holzer & Julia I. Lane & Lars Vilhuber, 2004. "Escaping Low Earnings: The Role of Employer Characteristics and Changes," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(4), pages 560-578, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:57:y:2004:i:4:p:560-578
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390405700405
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390405700405
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390405700405?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John M. Abowd & Robert H. Creecy & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Computing Person and Firm Effects Using Linked Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Julia I. Lane & John C. Haltiwanger & James Spletzer, 1999. "Productivity Differences across Employers: The Roles of Employer Size, Age, and Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 94-98, May.
    3. John Bishop, 1993. "Improving Job Matches in the U.S. Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1 Microec), pages 335-400.
    4. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:525-602 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Robert H. Topel & Michael P. Ward, 1992. "Job Mobility and the Careers of Young Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 439-479.
    6. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    7. Abowd, John M. & Kramarz, Francis, 1999. "The analysis of labor markets using matched employer-employee data," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 40, pages 2629-2710, Elsevier.
    8. Farber, Henry S., 1999. "Mobility and stability: The dynamics of job change in labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 37, pages 2439-2483, Elsevier.
    9. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Patricia M. Anderson & Bruce D. Meyer, 1994. "The Extent and Consequences of Job Turnover," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1994 Micr), pages 177-248.
    11. Lawrence F. Katz, 1986. "Efficiency Wage Theories: A Partial Evaluation," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1986, Volume 1, pages 235-290, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Royalty, Anne Beeson, 1998. "Job-to-Job and Job-to-Nonemployment Turnover by Gender and Education Level," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 16(2), pages 392-443, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rasmus Lentz & Suphanit Piyapromdee & Jean-Marc Robin, 2022. "The Anatomy of Sorting - Evidence from Danish Data," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03869383, HAL.
    2. Tim Maloney, 2007. "Health status and labour force status of older working-age Australian men," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 10(4), pages 295-318.
    3. Rasmus Lentz & Jean Marc Robin & Suphanit Piyapromdee, 2018. "On Worker and Firm Heterogeneity in Wages and Employment Mobility: Evidence from Danish Register Data," 2018 Meeting Papers 469, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Marchand, J. & Smeeding, T., 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 905-950, Elsevier.
    5. repec:osf:socarx:ykufd_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Rasmus Lentz & Suphanit Piyapromdee & Jean‐Marc Robin, 2023. "The Anatomy of Sorting—Evidence From Danish Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(6), pages 2409-2455, November.
    7. Dagney Faulk & Michael J Hicks, 2016. "The impact of bus transit on employee turnover: Evidence from quasi-experimental samples," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(9), pages 1836-1852, July.
    8. John J. Abowd & John Haltiwanger & Julia Lane, 2004. "Integrated Longitudinal Employer-Employee Data for the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 224-229, May.
    9. Landivar, Liana Christin & Beckhusen, Julia, 2019. "Racial Disparities in Women's Mobility out of Retail and Service Occupations," SocArXiv ykufd, Center for Open Science.
    10. Pollio, Chiara & Landini, Fabio & Prodi, Elena & Arrighetti, Alessandro, 2023. "Does Temporary Employment undermine the Quality of Permanent Jobs?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1273, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    11. Julie L. Hotchkiss & M. Melinda Pitts & John C. Robertson, 2004. "Wage gains among job changers across the business cycle: insight from state administrative data," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2004-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    12. Niki Dickerson Lockette & William E. Spriggs, 2016. "Wage Dynamics and Racial and Ethnic Occupational Segregation Among Less-Educated Men in Metropolitan Labor Markets," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 43(1), pages 35-56, March.
    13. Francisco Silva & José Vieira & António Pimenta & João Teixeira, 2018. "Duration of low-wage employment: a study based on a survival model," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 45(2), pages 286-299, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fredrik Andersson & Harry J. Holzer & Julia I. Lane, 2002. "The interactions of workers and firms in the low-wage labor market," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-12, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    2. Harry J. Holzer & Julia I. Lane & Lars Vilhuber & Henry Jackson & George Putnam, 2001. "Escaping poverty for low-wage workers The role of employer characteristics and changes," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2001-02, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    3. Gruetter, Max & Lalive, Rafael, 2009. "The importance of firms in wage determination," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 149-160, April.
    4. Andres Erosa & Luisa Fuster & Diego Restuccia, 2002. "Fertility Decisions and Gender Differences in Labor Turnover, Employment, and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 5(4), pages 856-891, October.
    5. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2001. "The importance of employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2001-18, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Mittag, Nikolas, 2016. "A Simple Method to Estimate Large Fixed Effects Models Applied to Wage Determinants and Matching," IZA Discussion Papers 10447, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Philip Oreopoulos & Till von Wachter & Andrew Heisz, 2006. "The Short- and Long-Term Career Effects of Graduating in a Recession: Hysteresis and Heterogeneity in the Market for College Graduates," NBER Working Papers 12159, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Mittag, Nikolas, 2012. "New methods to estimate models with large sets of fixed effects with an application to matched employer-employee data from Germany," FDZ Methodenreport 201201_en, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    9. repec:iab:iabfme:201201(en is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Fredrik Andersson & Harry J. Holzer & Julia Lane, 2009. "Temporary Help Agencies and the Advancement Prospects of Low Earners," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 373-398, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Bruce Fallick & Charles A. Fleischman, 2004. "Employer-to-employer flows in the U.S. labor market: the complete picture of gross worker flows," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2004-34, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    12. Paul A. Lengermann, 2002. "Is it Who You Are, Where You Work, or With Whom You Work? Reassessing the Relationship Between Skill Segregation and Wage Inequality," Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Technical Papers 2002-10, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    13. Simon Burgess & Julia Lane & Kevin McKinney, 2009. "Matching, Reallocation and Changes in Earnings Dispersion," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 91-110, February.
    14. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Estimating the Employer Switching Costs and Wage Responses of Forward-Looking Engineers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(2), pages 357-412, April.
    15. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & Sébastien Pérez-Duarte & Ian M. Schmutte, 2018. "Sorting Between and Within Industries: A Testable Model of Assortative Matching," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 129, pages 1-32.
    16. David Card & Ana Rute Cardoso & Joerg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2018. "Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 13-70.
    17. Cornelißen Thomas & Hübler Olaf, 2011. "Unobserved Individual and Firm Heterogeneity in Wage and Job-Duration Functions: Evidence from German Linked Employer–Employee Data," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 12(4), pages 469-489, December.
    18. Christophe Muller & Christophe Nordman, 2004. "Which Human Capital Matters For Rich And Poor'S Wages: Evidence From Matched Worker-Firm Data From Tunisia," Working Papers. Serie AD 2004-28, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    19. Glaser, Darrell & Rahman, Ahmed, 2015. "Human Capital on the High Seas - Job Mobility and Returns to Technical Skill During Industrialization," MPRA Paper 68351, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Hübler, Olaf, 2005. "Panel Data Econometrics: Modelling and Estimation," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-319, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    21. Andrews, Martyn J. & Schank, Thorsten & Upward, Richard, 2004. "Practical estimation methods for linked employer-employee data," Discussion Papers 29, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.

    More about this item

    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:sae:ilrrev:v:57:y:2004:i:4:p:560-578. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    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.