Wages, Nonwage Job Characteristics, and Labor Mobility

This paper examines the effects of a set of nonwage job characteristics on the quit decisions of young and middle-aged men. The data set was constructed by merging data in the National Longitudinal Surveys of Young and Mature Men with data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles file and the Bureau of Economic Analysis file on fringe benefits. The empirical analysis shows that some nonwage job attributes have significant influence on worker quit behavior and that there are important differences in the effects of the nonwage job characteristics across age groups. Young men are significantly more likely than older men to quit repetitive jobs, for example, whereas the presence of bad working conditions is a more important factor in the quit decisions of the older cohort. The results also indicate that, for the older men, fringe benefits have a stronger effect on quit decisions than wages do. Further evidence on age differences is provided through an analysis of panel data from the Quality of Employment Survey.