Occupational Careers of Young Women

Sigal Alon and Marta Tienda
Additional contact information
Sigal Alon: Princeton University
Marta Tienda: Princeton University

No 314, Working Papers from Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Office of Population Research.

Abstract: Occupational exchanges are a pervasive feature of the U.S. labor market as millions of persons change their occupation in any given year; the majority do so voluntarily, seeking better pay, job advancement, or improved working conditions. Yet it is unclear what share of these changes are chaotic and which represent leading to a systematic sequence of upward mobility. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (WorkHistory file) we examine the occupational careers of young women and find striking differences in the timing and frequency of occupational changes according to levels of education, particularly between college graduates and those with less than high school education. "Career trees" for most frequent occupational paths reveal that systematic occupational trajectories do exist, although with varying degrees of orderliness. We discover four modal career types based on the amount of schooling acquired. We conclude that the complex nature of women's occupational careers is simplified by our focus on their educational attainment.

Keywords: NLSY; National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-08
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://web.archive.org/web/20150906191047/http:// ... u/papers/opr0005.pdf

Related works:
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:pri:opopre:opr0005.pdf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Office of Population Research. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bobray Bordelon ().