Mobility in Professional Occupational-Internal Labor Markets: Stratification, Segmentation and Vacancy Chains

The partitioning of the national labor market along a number of dimensions has recently been a topic of considerable interest. Less attention has been directed to the segmentation that occurs within submarkets or economic sectors. Yet the same forces that create sectors at the national level also segment internal labor markets bounded by occupations. The analysis of 1,741 job vacancy chains involving intercollegiate football and basketball coaches demonstrates that a core-periphery segmentation occurs within these occupational-internal labor markets. Jobs within the core of the market are more stable and individuals have greater chances for mobility. These results suggest that disaggregating the national labor market solely on the basis of occupation or economic variables is insufficient.