Wage Changes and Job Changes of Canadian Women: Evidence from the 1986-87 Labour Market Activity Survey

Abstract

The paper employs data from the 1986-87 Labour Market Activity Survey to investigate empirically how the wage rates of female paid workers in Canada change when they change jobs, in particular whether Canadian women realize short-run wage gains from job mobility. Following Mincer (1986), we estimate the short-run wage gain to job mobility by comparing the between-job wage changes of current-period job movers with the on-the-job wage growth of next-period job movers. The findings indicate that Canadian women who changed jobs in 1986 realized short-run wage gains of 8-9 percent, and that women who quit their first job for nonpersonal (job-related) reasons realized substantially greater wage gains than did women who quit for personal reasons, were laid off, or separated for other reasons.