Labor Market Transitions: Cyclic,Trend,and Seasonal Effects for Prime-Age Men

Abstract

Drawing on unpublished Current Population Survey sources, this article investigates the movements (transitions) of men aged 25–44 among three labor market categories—employment, unemployment, and nonparticipation—from June 1967 through December 1978. The estimating equation treats a transition probability as a function of an aggregate cyclical indicator, a quadratic time trend, and a set of monthly dummies. Of the three variables, seasonality had the greatest effect on transition probabilities; trend ran a close second; and cyclical factors, a distant third. From the findings that the probability of moving from unemployment to employment declined sharply over the period and that trend factors were much more important than cyclical factors, the author concludes that structural unemployment has been worsening.

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