Navigating Regional Barriers to Job Mobility: The Role of Opportunity Structures in Individual Job-to-Job Transitions

Katrin Rickmeier ()
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Katrin Rickmeier: Faculty of Economics, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-25

Abstract: Job-to-job transitions are associated with career progression and wage gains. Thus, regional differences in job mobility potentially contribute to and reinforce regional and social inequalities. This study aims to close the research gap in the understanding of the regional contexts in which individual job mobility occurs. Using the theoretical concept of regional opportunity structures, three key aspects of region-related job changes are investigated: regional determinants of (1) general job mobility; (2) job mobility with wage gains; and (3) simultaneous job and residential mobility. This study is based on individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study, enriched with regional indicators. The results show that job changes are negatively associated with labour market tightness, indicating that workers are less likely to change jobs in regions with a high ratio of job vacancies to unemployed workers. Fewer job-to-job transitions in tighter labour markets suggests that regional factors such as job availability and security play an important role in shaping job mobility, and that policies aimed at promoting job transitions may need to consider the specificities of local labour markets. The effects of other indicators of economic opportunities remain insignificant, and there are no clear effects of other aspects of regional opportunity structures.

Keywords: regional opportunity structures; job-to-job transitions; labour mobility; structural effects; spatial inequalities; labour market; job-to-job flows; labour market tightness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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