Are Shorter Cumulative Temporary Contracts Worse Stepping Stones? Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

Jan Kabátek, Ying Liang () and Kun Zheng
Additional contact information
Ying Liang: University of Mainz
Kun Zheng: Shandong University

No 15407, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Temporary employment contracts are often regarded as 'stepping stones' for workers' careers, because they can help inexperienced workers secure a permanent contract. Our study evaluates whether this stepping-stone function is moderated by the contract duration, exploiting a Dutch policy reform that shortened the maximum duration of sequences of temporary contracts with the same employers from 3 years to 2 years. Leveraging a sharp regression discontinuity design and administrative register data, we show that the reform accelerated the transitions of temporary workers to permanent contracts with the same employers, with the effect being strongest among those working for the same employers for 1-2 years. We conclude that the reform brought more job security to temporary workers without impeding the stepping-stone function of their contracts.

Keywords: stepping stone; permanent contract; temporary contracts; chain rule (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J28 J41 J42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2022-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-eur and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Labour Economics, 2023, 84, 102427

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp15407.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Are shorter cumulative temporary contracts worse stepping stones? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15407

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().