Abstract
We present a meta-analysis on the debate about the stone vs. dead end' hypothesis related to the causal effect of temporary jobs on future labour market performances. We select academic papers published on international peer-reviewed journals from 1990 until 2021. Among 78 observations from 64 articles, 32% support the hypothesis according to which temporary contracts are a port of entry into stable employment positions, 23% report ambiguous or mixed findings, and the remaining 45% provide evidence in favour of the dead end hypothesis. The results from meta-regressions suggest that the stepping stone effect is more likely to emerge when self-selectivity issues are dealt with, especially when using the timing-of-events approach. The studies focusing on temporary work agency jobs and casual/seasonal jobs detect more easily results in favour of the dead end hypothesis. Finally, in more recent years and when the unemployment rate is larger, the dead end hypothesis is more likely to prevail.
Highlights
In the last three decades the labour market institutions of many OECD countries have changed substantially, with the rise of new forms of contracts, especially temporary forms of employment
Yses, all studies focused on Employment Protection Legislation (EPL) and empirical analyses that draw their conclusions on the effects of temporary jobs by considering labour market reforms and EPL dynamics. These studies are different from our research purpose: we only focus on microeconomic analyses which study whether the choice of accepting a temporary contract is a port of entry into stable employment positions or a dead end
Citations per year In Model (1), which uses the whole sample, we find that the stepping stone outcome has a positive and sizeable effect on citations, albeit statistically significant only at the 10% level: studies finding support for the stepping stone hypothesis receive in a year on average 9 citations more than those which conclude that temporary jobs are dead ends
Summary
In the last three decades the labour market institutions of many OECD countries have changed substantially, with the rise of new forms of contracts, especially temporary forms of employment. There are papers reporting evidence that could be in favour of the stepping stone hypothesis, but only if the worker does not experience repeated flexible contracts or job interruptions (Gagliarducci, 2005; Sanz, 2011). In light of these conflicting and different findings, a second contribution of our paper is to quantitatively combine evidence from different studies on a similar theme by way of meta-analysis techniques, so as to provide a systematic review and understanding of heterogeneous results about the impact of temporary jobs on subsequent labour market performances.
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