Intra-generational occupational mobility in prime age
This report examines the extent to which individuals change occupations, measured by main occupational class, in prime working age across and how this varies across 22 countries included in the longitudinal part of the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions (SILC) from 2011 to 2019, and how such movements vary across background characteristics. Special attention is paid to the intersection of gender with two sources of disadvantage, living in rural areas and having a activity-limiting health condition. The approach taken is to study occupational stability across the four-year period and employ, apart from descriptive graphs, a simple regression-based framework to examine differences across groups, including intersections of potentially disadvantaged groups. The empirical results demonstrate there is a substantial amount variation across countries in the extent of occupational stability/change across even such a short period as four years. Belgium and Austria have the most, and Romania and Cyprus the least mobility. A graphical analysis of movements suggest that the vast majority of movers move just once, but that moves do take place across all combinations of occupational class pairs. Mobility does differ across men and women, but variation across countries is substantially greater than across genders. The likelihood of staying does vary substantially across background characteristics. Mobility varies little across time in the countries, and when mobility is examined for women, persons having health limitations and living in rural settings, there tends to be less mobility among disadvantaged groups, also when examined intersectionally.
By Markus Jäntti.
There are substantial differences across countries in the share of persons who remain in the same main occupational class across four years.
This varies across occupations, but country differences are larger than those across occupations in countries.
The extent to which women and persons with other potential disadvantages are more or less likely to be mobile varies, also when considered intersectionally, across countries.