Occupation, Occupational Change and Movement within the Income Distribution

The authors find considerable earnings mobility in panel data of a sample of white males and associate occupational mobility with these changes in real labor earnings, both in absolute terms and relative to an income distribution. Results of an error-components estimation reveal that occupation and movement among occupations exert strong influences on earnings changes even after controlling for a number of other factors. Effects of the interdependence of earnings and occupational mobility, the state of the pairings, and a variety of personal characteristics are also studied.