Who is confronted to insecure labor market histories? Some evidence based on the French labor market transition

This paper presents some empirical evidence on the French labor market focusing on transitions between stable jobs, temporary work, unemployment and non-participation. The model used is based on a Markov chain mixture which allows to distinguish labor market histories that are confined to contingent work and non-employment from the non-confined ones. This enables us to identify, quantify and characterize (conditional on observable characteristics) the workers who never accede to stable jobs and remain stuck to temporary jobs and non-employment spells. We consider quarterly labor market transitions, observed from 2003 to 2006 in the Labor Force survey (LFS). We find that on the whole, about 5% of the working age population experience confined transition dynamics: they cannot access to stable jobs. Confined workers are less educated and are more likely to live in distressed areas.