The Demographics of Labour Turnover: A Comparison of Ordinal Probit and Censored Count Data Models

Abstract

It is well accepted that demographic variables as well as economic determinants may affect an individual's labour mobility. Labour market mobility is related to unemployment and job changes. There are two demographic aspects of labour market performance that found interest in the literature, the effect of cohort size and the role of family status. Easterlin (1987) has aadvocated the point that large generation size may depress economic perspective. Many empirical studies show that larger cohorts experience lower earnings. Ben-Porath (1988) has investigated the effects of cohort size in the unemployment rate of young men confirming that an increase in cohort size increases empployment. Benham (1974), Cramer (1980) and Kenny (1983) have studied the role of family status for earnings and work activity. Kenny (1983) shows that large wage differenrtials associated with martial status are a result of the higher human capital of marries males who have higher incentives to make investments into education than single males. Cramer (1980) demonstrates that the family size is positively associated with an increase in male's employment and his earnings.

Financial support from the German Science Foundation (DFG) is gratefully acknowledged. Preliminary versions of this paper were presented at the 1990 meeting of the European Society for Population Economics (ESPE) in Istanbul, and in seminars given in the University of Amsterdam and in the Section Population Economics of the German Economic Association. We wish to thank seminar participants and Anders M. Klevrnarken, Christoph M. Schmidt and Rainer Winkelmann as the referees for valuable comments. The study has also benefited from the second author’s visit to Center, Tilburg University, in 1990.