IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18718.html

Predicting Labor Force Types

Author

Listed:
  • Castro, Rui

    (McGill University)

  • Kim, Jiyoung

    (McGill University)

  • Lange, Fabian

    (McGill University)

  • Larivière, Jérôme

    (McGill University)

  • Poschke, Markus

    (McGill University)

Abstract

A small group of people accounts for a large majority of flows between labor market states and of spells in unemployment and non-employment. In this paper, we ask whether it is possible to identify those who will be weakly attached to the labor market during their prime working-age years using information available earlier in life. Using the long panel of the NLSY79, we first identify individuals with weak labor market attachment between ages 30 and 50 based on their observed employment, unemployment, and non-employment histories. This reveals a group that is disproportionately female, less educated, and in poorer health. We then examine whether membership in this group can be predicted using information collected before age 30 that is not used in the classification itself. We find that information from ages 22 to 29 predicts later labor market attachment with high accuracy. Early labor market experiences and health are particularly important predictors. The ability to predict labor market attachment decades in advance suggests that persistent individual differences play an important role in shaping labor market outcomes throughout the life cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Castro, Rui & Kim, Jiyoung & Lange, Fabian & Larivière, Jérôme & Poschke, Markus, 2026. "Predicting Labor Force Types," IZA Discussion Papers 18718, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18718
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18718.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

    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:iza:izadps:dp18718. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.html .

    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.