MALE OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY IN BRITAIN*
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0084.1995.mp57003005.x |
| Date | 01 August 1995 |
| Published date | 01 August 1995 |
| Author | Barry Harper |
OXFORD BULLETIN OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS, 57,3(1995)
0305-9049 $3.00
MALE OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY IN
BRITAIN*
Barry Harper
The mobility of labour has a critical influence on the supply-side of the
economy. It has several dimensions as workers move between jobs, firms,
industries, occupations and regions. However, despite its importance for
income growth, resource allocation and the level of structural unemployment,
occupational mobility has received less attention than other components of
labour mobility. In particular, little consideration has been given to the
determinants of occupational turnover despite its overall size. Data collected
as part of the National Training Survey1 (Manpower Services Commission,
1976) indicates that nearly 11 percent of males in the labour force leave a
three digit occupation each year; 7 percent do so for voluntary reasons such
as promotion and better earnings. In the latter case, the separation is deemed
to be an occupational quit. It is important to note that workers may quit their
occupations without moving firms. Occupational quits are distinct from job
quits.Research on occupational mobility has tended instead to focus on the
issues of early occupational choice and occupational attainment. The former
models the occupational choice, broadly defined, of recent entrants to the
labour market and concentrates almost entirely on the role of schooling and
family background; see for example Robertson and Symons (1990) or Dolton
et al. (1989). The role of human capital accumulation within the labour
market is not considered either for the initial choice of occupation or for
subsequent occupational change. Models of occupational attainment rank
occupations in terms of relative desirability and examine the determinants of
upward or downward movement and the overall level achieved. This
approach is adopted by Greenhalgh and Stewart (1985), Nickell (1982) and
Connolly, Micklewright and Nickell (1992).
Sicherman and Galor (1990) develop a theory of career mobility which
they find to be consistent with US annual data drawn from the Panel Study of
* I am grateful to Peter Elias who supplied data from the National Training Survey. Stephen
Lee and Chris Knell provided programming assistance. The paper has benefited from com-
ments made by the editors, George Hadjimatheou, Dimitrios Malliaropoulos, John Nankervis
and Andrew Oswald. Errors remain my responsibility.
'The survey, undertaken during 1975(2)-1 976(1), covered over 50,000 men and women of
working age in Britain. 349
© Bla..kwcll Publishers Ltd. 1995. Published by Blackwcl! Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxftrd 0X4 uF.
UK & 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA (>2142, USA.
350 BULLETIN
Income Dynamics for the period 1976-81 at a two-digit level of disaggrega-
tion. While the approach of this study is more general, being concerned
primarily with occupational quits as opposed to career development defined
as mobility to a 'higher-level' occupation, the work is complementary.
The main contribution of this paper to the analysis of occupational mobil-
ity is twofold. First, an occupational quits equation using micro data is
estimated for a representative sample of the labour force in Britain.2 Previ-
ously, this has not been attempted. Second, the scope of the NTS data allow
an extensive array of hypotheses regarding occupational mobility to be
tested.3 In addition, distinction is made between inter- and intra-firm occupa-
tional mobility. This yields implications regarding the operation of internal
labour markets and factors affecting the probability of firm quits conditional
on changing occupation.
The paper is organised as follows. A rudimentary model of human capital
accumulation incorporating occupational quits is developed in Section I.
Section II of the paper examines data on occupational mobility, and the
estimation results for occupational quits are discussed in Section III. In Sec-
tion IV we look briefly at inter- and intra-firm occupational mobility. Section
V contains a summary and conclusions.
I. THE MODEL
An occupation is defined on the basis of a set of tasks undertaken by a
worker which requires particular skills. Individuals within an occupation are
therefore highly substitutable. An occupational quit, which is the main focus
of this paper, is defined as a worker-initiated separation from a given occupa-
tion for reasons such as promotion, better earnings or better prospects.
Occupational quits data are included in the NTS.
Occupational quits arise for three main reasons. First, taking the distribu-
tion of wages as given, occupational mobility occurs as part of a process of
human capital accumulation (see Rosen, 1972). Second, occupational quits
will decline in occupations where high pay yields positive net advantage for
incumbent workers. These gains may be temporary or persistent. Finally,
worker heterogeneity and uncertainty induces occupational mobility as
workers and firms seek a good match (Miller, 1984).
The theoretical model of occupational mobility is based on the work of
Rosen (1972) and Shaw (1986). Individuals are assumed heterogeneous in
their demand for training. However, occupations only provide a fixed
quantity of training opportunities. Given different demands for the acquisi-
tion of human capital over the lifetime of a worker, it may be optimal to work
2Estimates of job quits in Britain have had to rely on aggregate turnover data (see for
example, McCormick, 1988) as no British data for aggregate job quits exists.
Congdon (1988) for example, examining occupational mobility using work history data
obtained from the Irish Mobility Study over the period 1963-73, is unable to test the human
capital approach to mobility with any confidence due to the limitations of the data.
© Blackwcll Publishers Ltd. 1995.
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