Status
Ongoing (2008 - 2013)
Project Manager
Prof. Dr. Jürg Schweri
Team
Annina Eymann
Project Description
The aim of the project is to examine the labour market mobility of employees changing careers and companies in Switzerland and to determine the resulting wage consequences based on longitudinal data (FSO’s Swiss Labour Force Survey), with a particular focus on the role played by the education of those surveyed.
In addition to a twin project, which analysed occupational mobility after completing an apprenticeship (Müller & Schweri, 2009), this project is intended to focus on changing occupations and companies later on in their careers, drawing a correlation, among other things, with initial education and training. Here, it is necessary to also take other types of labour market mobility sufficiently into account, in order to be able to pinpoint the role and effects of changing careers.
It is possible to compare occupations for which training has been completed and those actually entered by using cross-sectional data. In contrast, longitudinal data is required in order to observe the changing of occupations and companies during one’s working life. According to Becker (1962), it is, in theory, to be expected that persons with a vocational background have greater company and job-specific human capital and are therefore less mobile or are more likely to experience pay cuts upon changing. The study therefore helps to clarify whether vocational education results in restricted mobility for employees during their working lives, as has been presumed at various points.
Before being able to analyse the wage consequences of changing occupations and companies, it is necessary to precisely analyse labour market movements. Once again, there is a lack of knowledge here in Switzerland, which means that, among other things, the various mobility patterns and the frequency with which they occur are not known. Since mobility is heavily dependent upon the economic situation, it is necessary to incorporate economic data into this analysis. Using the study of Frederiksen & Westergaard-Nielsen (2007) for Denmark as a basis, the Swiss labour market over the past 10 years should be examined. In contrast to Denmark, vocational education has a far greater significance in Switzerland. This therefore poses the question of how (or whether) VET graduates differ from graduates of more academic upper-secondary level studies. Do different mobility patterns emerge depending on education? Which factors determine mobility? What impact does changing jobs and careers have on salary?
Method
Analysis of secondary data. Quantitative methods for the analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal data, in particular, use of multinomial logit regression and fixed effects estimates with controlled endogeneity.
Publications
Eymann, A., & Schweri, J. (2011). Arbeitsmarktmobilität von Personen mit beruflicher Bildung in der Schweiz. In J. Markowitsch, E. Gruber, L. Lassnigg & D. Moser (Hrsg.),
Turbulenzen auf Arbeitsmärkten und in Bildungssystemen – Beiträge zur Berufsbildungsforschung. Band 7. Innsbruck/Wien/Bozen: StudienVerlag.
Contact Persons
Prof. Dr. Jürg Schweri
Annina Eymann