n Discussion Paper No. 1531, Alison Booth, Marco Francesconi and Carlos Garcia-Serrano provide evidence of changes in job mobility and seek to ascertain the extent to which work history is relevant in the labour markets of the United Kingdom in the twentieth-century. The authors use a new data source – the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) – which is detailed enough to provide an almost complete work history of the individual surveyed. Among the principal findings from the cross-tabulations are that job tenure increases with the number of jobs for both men and women, but declines with the date of entry into the labour market, with more recent cohorts having shorter tenure patterns. The average number of jobs held is five for both men and women, half of which are held in the first ten years of working life. In addition, the probability of a male seeking self-employment and of a female seeking part-time employment increases with the number of jobs.

The working history of an employee is found to ‘matter’ in two respects. The first is date of entry: entry to the labour market earlier in the twentieth century is associated with longer job tenure but also with more pronounced gender differences. The second is personal history: as jobs accumulate, job tenure increases and men are more likely to shift into self-employment and females into part-time employment.

Job Tenure: Does History matter?
Alison L Booth, Marco Francesconi and Carlos Garcia-Serrano