Masked Instability? Trends in Job Tenure in Canada, the United States and Germany, 1976-2014

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Job Insecurity and Precarious Employment III

Abstract

The widespread narrative of a shift towards more precarious and flexible labour markets has not been supported by most empirical studies focusing on job stability. However, new findings show that average job tenure duration for married men and married non-mothers decreased in recent years in the US, masked by the increase in average job tenure of married mothers. This last trend is related to growing participation of women in the labour market and other changes in behaviour around childbirth. This paper aims to replicate this study for two other Anglo-Saxon countries (Canada and the UK) and for Germany to examine whether similar shifts are taking place in other OECD countries. The preliminary evidence appears to show similar patterns across the liberal labour market economies. All three countries experienced decreases in job tenure among men and single non-mothers, supporting the view that these countries have moved towards a more flexible employment model. This shift towards job instability was masked by strong increases in job tenure among married mothers (as well as rising tenure among public-sector workers in Canada before 1990). In the case of Germany, no important drop in average tenure can be observed for married men after 1990, while the increase in job stability for married mothers is much weaker. Some of these trends might be affected by socio-demographic and macro-economic factors, which have been shown to greatly affect job tenure trends. The preliminary findings presented in this paper using descriptive statistics do not allow us to disentangle different trends.

Authors

• Xavier St-Denis, McGill University

• Matissa Hollister, McGill University