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Authors: Hollister, Matissa N.; Kristin E. Smith

Publication: American Sociological Review (Forthcoming)

Abstract:

Americans are convinced that employment stability has declined in recent decades, but聽previous research on this question has led to mixed conclusions. A key challenge is that聽trends for men and women are in opposite directions and appear to cancel each other out.聽We clarify this situation by examining trends in employer tenure by sex, marital status, and聽parental status. We find that married mothers are behind the increase in women鈥檚 job tenure,聽but men and never-married women have seen declines in tenure. Furthermore, we show that聽the timing of tenure trends for women parallels periods of increased labor force attachment.聽Finally, we find that shifts in industry and occupation composition can account for the聽decline in tenure among men and never-married women before 1996 but not afterward. We聽situate these diverging trends in two broad shifts in expectations, norms, and behaviors in聽the labor market: the end-of-work discourse and the revolution in women鈥檚 identification聽with paid work. Our findings support the view that job tenure is declining for all groups,聽but women鈥檚 greater labor force attachment, especially their more continuous employment聽around childbirth, countered and masked this trend.