with Aurelijus Dabušinskas
Published in European Journal of Political Economy 25 (June 2009) 261–275 ( pdf )
Why do workers change occupations? This paper investigates occupational
mobility and its
determinants following a large unexpected shock (communism’s collapse in
1989.) Our calculations
show that from 1989 to 1995 between 35 and 50 percent of Estonian workers
changed occupations
(classified at one- and four-digits, respectively.) Among the main determinants
of occupational
mobility we find firm tenure, labour market experience and returns to alternative
occupations. We
investigate the role of gender and ethnicity and find strong results for
the former, with mobility mainly
driven by push factors for males (returns to current occupations) and by
pull factors for females (returns to
alternative occupations).