Low-wage employment versus unemployment: Which one provides better prospects for women?

Artikel

Using German SOEP data, 1999 - 2009, this study analyzes state dependence in low-wage employment of western German women, where we distinguish between full-time and part-time working. We estimate a dynamic multinomial logit model with random effects and find that having a low-wage job - compared to having a high-wage job - ceteris paribus decreases the probability of being high-paid in the future. This negative effect is significantly larger for part-time jobs than for full-time jobs. We find mixed evidence for a low-pay-no-pay cycle: compared to being high-paid, having a low-paid job increases the risk of being unemployed in the next period only for part-time workers. However, concerning future wage prospects low-paid women are clearly better off than unemployed or inactive women. We argue that for women low-wage jobs can serve as stepping stones out of unemployment and are to be preferred to staying unemployed and waiting for a better job.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: IZA Journal of European Labor Studies ; ISSN: 2193-9012 ; Volume: 3 ; Year: 2014 ; Issue: 21 ; Pages: 1-17 ; Heidelberg: Springer

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General ; Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers: General ; Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions
• Subject: Low-pay dynamics ; State dependence ; Dynamic multinomial logit model

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Mosthaf, Alexander ; Schank, Thorsten ; Schnabel, Claus
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Springer
• (where): Heidelberg
• (when): 2014

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1186/2193-9012-3-21
• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/125591
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET