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Employment Insecurity: The Decline in Worker-Firm Attachment in the United States

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  • Henry S. Farber

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

Long-term employment relationships have long been an important feature of the labor market in the United States. However, increased international competition and the wave of corporate downsizing in the 1990s raised concerns that long-term employment relationships in the United States were disappearing. I present evidence in this study, based on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1973-2006, that long-term employment relationships have, in fact, become much less common for men in the private sector. Mirroring this decline in tenure and long-term employment relationships, there has been an increase in "churning" (defined as the proportion of workers in jobs with less than one year of tenure) for males in the private sector as they enter their thirties and later. In contrast, women have seen no systematic change in job durations or the incidence of long term employment relationships in the private sector. There has been an increase in job durations and the incidence of long-term employment relationships in the public sector, with the increase more pronounced for women. I conclude that 1) the structure of jobs in the private sector has moved away from long-term relationships, 2) this decline has been offset for females by their increased attachment to the labor force, and 3) the public sector has been less susceptible to the competitive forces that are likely causing the changes in the private sector. It seems clear that more recent cohorts of workers are less likely than their parents to have a career characterized by a ?life-time? job with a single employer.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry S. Farber, 2008. "Employment Insecurity: The Decline in Worker-Firm Attachment in the United States," Working Papers 1056, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:172
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Neumark, David & Polsky, Daniel & Hansen, Daniel, 1999. "Has Job Stability Declined Yet? New Evidence for the 1990s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 29-64, October.
    2. Jaeger, David A & Stevens, Ann Huff, 1999. "Is Job Stability in the United States Falling? Reconciling Trends in the Current Population Survey and Panel Study of Income Dynamics," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(4), pages 1-28, October.
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    11. Henry S. Farber, 1997. "Job Creation in the United States: Good Jobs or Bad?," Working Papers 764, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    12. Jaeger, David A. & Stevens, Ann Huff, 1999. "Is Job Stability in the United States Falling?," IZA Discussion Papers 35, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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    Cited by:

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    2. N/A, 2013. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Job Quality: What Does it Mean and How Might We Think about It?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 66(4), pages 739-752, July.
    3. Hyatt, Henry R. & Spletzer, James R., 2016. "The shifting job tenure distribution," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 363-377.
    4. Riphahn, Regina T. & Schnitzlein, Daniel D., 2016. "Wage mobility in East and West Germany," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 11-34.
    5. Emelie Hane-Weijman & Rikard H. Eriksson & David Rigby, 2020. "How do occupational relatedness and complexity condition employment dynamics in periods of growth and recession?," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2011, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Mar 2020.
    6. Ilaria D’Angelis, 2020. "Are We There? Differences in Search, Preferences and Jobs between Young Highly Educated Male and Female Workers," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 1018, Boston College Department of Economics.
    7. Uren, Lawrence, 2018. "The redistributive role of unemployment benefits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 236-258.
    8. Jo M. Hale & Christian Dudel & Angelo Lorenti, 2020. "Cumulative disparities in the dynamics of working poverty for later-career U.S. workers (2002-2012)," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-028, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    9. John Hassard & Jonathan Morris, 2018. "Contrived Competition and Manufactured Uncertainty: Understanding Managerial Job Insecurity Narratives in Large Corporations," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(3), pages 564-580, June.
    10. Ehlert, Martin, 2011. "Shifted labor market risks? The changing economic consequences of job loss in the United States and West Germany," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2011-205, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    11. Kevin F. Hallock, 2009. "Job Loss and the Fraying of the Implicit Employment Contract," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 23(4), pages 69-93, Fall.
    12. Hale, Jo Mhairi & Dudel, Christian & Lorenti, Angelo, 2020. "Cumulative disparities in the dynamics of working poverty for later-career U.S. workers (2002-2012)," SocArXiv xka5j, Center for Open Science.
    13. Reich, Michael, 2012. "Unemployment after the Great Recession: Why so High? What Can We Do?/El desempleo después de la Gran Recesión: ¿Por qué tan alto? ¿Qué podemos hacer?," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 30, pages 11-28, Abril.
    14. Kristin A. Horan & Mindy K. Shoss & Cynthia Mejia & Katherine Ciarlante, 2021. "Industry Context as an Essential Tool for the Future of Healthy and Safe Work: Illustrative Examples for Occupational Health Psychology from the Hospitality Industry," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(20), pages 1-14, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    United States;

    JEL classification:

    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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