Within- and between-firm mobility in the low-wage labour market

Abstract

Wage mobility among low wage earners has previously been focussing on the characteristics of the low wage earners, whereas the role of the firm has been neglected. The purpose of this study is to focus on the characteristics of the firms when analysing variation in wage mobility. The empirical findings confirm that the characteristics of the employing firm indeed matter for low-wage employees´ likelihood of escaping a low-wage job. Especially does the employing firm affect the destination state – i.e. where a low-wage worker goes after having finished a low-wage job, and the findings enable me to identify three types of firms: career firms with high within-firm upward wage mobility, stepping-stone firms with high between-firm upward wage mobility and dead-end firms with low upward wage mobility.Low wage earners; wage mobility; firm behaviour; employer-employee relations