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Employment Duration and Industrial Labor Mobility in the United States, 1880–1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Sanford M. Jacoby  and
Sunil Sharma
Sanford M. Jacoby
Affiliation:
Professor, Anderson Graduate School of Management
Sunil Sharma
Affiliation:
Assitant Professor of Economics, both at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024.
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Abstract

Recent studies of job tenure raise the question of the appropriate duration statistic to use in historical research. This article compares duration measures and examines their empirical and theoretical implications for historical research on employment tenure. Using a variety of data from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we find that although there existed a sector of stable jobs, most industrial jobs were brief. Since World War I, however, there has been a sharp shift in the relative size and importance of the short- and long-term job sectors.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 161 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1992

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