Does Informal Learning at Work Differ between Temporary and Permanent Workers? Evidence from 20 OECD Countries

Maria Ferreira Sequeda, Andries de Grip and Rolf Van der Velden ()

No 9322, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Several studies have shown that employees with temporary contracts have lower training participation than those with permanent contracts. There is, however, no empirical literature on the difference in informal learning on the job between permanent and temporary workers. In this paper, we analyse this difference across 20 OECD countries using unique data from the recent PIAAC survey. Using a control function model with endogenous switching, we find that workers in temporary jobs engage in informal learning more intensively than their counterparts in permanent employment, although the former are, indeed, less likely to participate in formal training activities. In addition, we find evidence for complementarity between training and informal learning for both temporary and permanent employees. Our findings suggest that temporary employment need not be dead-end jobs. Instead, temporary jobs of high learning content could be a stepping stone towards permanent employment. However, our results also suggest that labour market segmentation in OECD countries occurs within temporary employment due to the distinction between jobs with low and high learning opportunities.

Keywords: temporary contracts; informal learning; training; human capital investments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J24 J41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-lma and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Published - published in: Labour Economics,, 2018, 55, 18-40

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp9322.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does informal learning at work differ between temporary and permanent workers? Evidence from 20 OECD countries (2018)
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:dp9322

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 ().