Aging, Job Mobility, and Compensation

Age and tenure are negatively correlated with job mobility. Mobility patterns therefore change over the lifetime. In this paper we analyze job mobility patterns and the way they change with age and tenure. A novelty is that the effects of financial incentives (wage differentials), mobility costs, and non-financial incentives (the shadow price for physically arduous labour) are disentangled. It is shown how these elements change with age. The results confirm our hypotheses. The rapid decline in mobility with age is simultaneously caused by declining financial gains, rising costs, and a higher shadow price for older workers.