Hw. Herzog, Employment uncertainty and the incidence of job loss in transition economies: The case for Central Europe, S ECON J, 66(3), 2000, pp. 567-589
A shared concern among Central European countries is the significant social
cost imposed by market-oriented reforms. Although a growing body of litera
ture has addressed the incidence of such reforms on unemployment distributi
on and duration, little is known of the actual transitions of workers from
employment to unemployment and specifically the dynamics of transition-indu
ced job loss, This study examines such transitions in the Czech and Slovak
Republics, Poland, and Slovenia within econometric models whereby voluntary
and involuntary employment separations are jointly determined. In this reg
ard, employment reductions triggered by demand-driven reforms are accommoda
ted at the industry and the occupation level by redundancies as well as vol
untary quits in anticipation of redundancy. in addition, employed workers w
ithin the models consider the "costs" of job loss (likelihood of long-term
unemployment) while both shirking, and thus risking dismissal, and contempl
ating quitting. Estimates on personal characteristic variables in the invol
untary and voluntary separation equations provide important new information
on the incidence of job loss in Central European transition economies and
specifically how such loss likely varies by gender, age, marital status, an
d completed education. Particular attention is devoted to gender differenti
als.