Abstract
In this article we study job shift patterns in the former East and West Germany. We compare rates of (within-firm and across-firm) job mobility of East and West German men and study the impact of labor market composition (education, social class, industrial sector, and firm size) on the mobility rates. Our hypotheses are derived from an institutional approach in which we describe similarities and differences in institutions and structures of the two former German labor markets. Analyses of retrospective job history data from German Life History Studies revealed a basic similarity in the odds of job shifting of East and West German male workers. Yet, East German men differed from West German men in having higher odds of job mobility within a firm and lower odds of job mobility to other firms. Explanatory analyses show that firm size accounts best for the country difference in the rate of within-firm job mobility: 40 per cent of the higher within-firm mobility rate can be accounted for by the greater size of firms in East Germany. These findings suggest that state-socialism affected work life mobility and that it did so in part through differential labor market composition.
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