Volume 29, Number 2 (Spring) 1994
Abbott, Michael G., and Charles M. Beach. 1994. "Wage Changes and Job Changes of Canadian Women: Evidence From the 1986-87 Labour Market Activity Survey." Journal of Human Resources 29(2):429-460.
The paper employs data from the 1986-87 Labour Market Activity Survey to investigate empirically how the wage rates of female paid workers in Canada change when they change jobs, in particular whether Canadian women realize short-run wage gains from job mobility. Following Mincer (1986), we estimate the short-run wage gain to job mobility by comparing the between-job wage changes of "current-period" job movers with the on-the-job wage growth of "next-period" job movers. The findings indicate that Canadian women who changed jobs in 1986 realized short-run wage gains of 9-9 percent, and that women who quit their first job for nonpersonal (job-related) reasons realized substantially greater wage gains than did women who quit for personal reasons, were laid off, or separated for other reasons.
Michael Abbott is an assistant professor of economics, and Charles Beach is a professor of economics, at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. The initial version of this paper was presented at the December 1991 Donner Foundation Conference on the Economic Well-Being of Women and Children held at the University of Minnesota Industrial Relations Center. The authors wish to thank David Saettone for his valuable research assistance; their colleague Stephen Kaliski for his many insightful and constructive suggestions; Steve Jones, David Neumark, Lars Osberg, and Kenneth I. Wolpin for their very useful comments; and several other participants at the Donner Foundation February 1991 Workshop and December 1991 Conference for their helpful discussions. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the very detailed and helpful comments of an anonymous referee, and the unfailing encouragement so generously provided by Alice Nakamura. They retain full responsibility for all remaining errors and shortcomings. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning in August 1994 through August 1997 from the authors at the department of Economics, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L 3N6.
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