JOB MATCHING AND WOMENS WAGE-TENURE PROFILE

Recently, researchers have challenged the validity of the dominant the ories of wage growth, claiming that the observed positive relation bet ween wages and tenure is an artefact of omitted job match quality. In sharp contrast to the human capital theory, job match theory implies t hat women's wages are not directly affected by their discontinuous lab our force participation. Using samples of women workers from three dat a sets, the authors estimate structural models of the wage-tenure rela tion which control directly for job match quality, and find evidence o f a strong positive relation between wages and tenure.