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Low‐wage Jobs — Springboard to High‐paid Ones?
Author(s) -
Knabe Andreas,
Plum Alexander
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/labr.12015
Subject(s) - low wage , unemployment , wage , work (physics) , economics , labour economics , multivariate probit model , bivariate analysis , german , probit model , hourly wage , demographic economics , econometrics , economic growth , engineering , history , mechanical engineering , statistics , mathematics , archaeology
We examine whether low‐paid jobs have an effect on the probability that unemployed persons obtain better‐paid jobs in the future (springboard effect). We make use of data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel ( SOEP ) and apply a dynamic random effects bivariate probit model. Our results suggest that low‐wage jobs can act as springboards to better‐paid work. The improvement of the chance to obtain a high‐wage job by accepting low‐paid work is particularly large for less‐skilled persons and for individuals who experienced longer periods of unemployment. Low‐paid work is less beneficial if the job is associated with a low social status.