Table 4 Description of the independent variables
From: Labor market tightness and individual wage growth: evidence from Germany
Regressors | Range |
|---|---|
Individual characteristics | |
Age | Binary; classification: 15 to < 18 years, 18 to < 21 years, 21 to < 24 years, 24 to < 27 years and 27 to 30 years |
Gender | Binary; male and female |
Mother | Binary; whether a woman interrupts her job for child care within the 10 years of observation time |
Foreigner | Binary; individual did not have a German passport |
School-leaving qualification | Binary; no degree, lower secondary education (Hauptschule), secondary education (Mittlere Reife), higher education (Abitur) |
Additional qualification | Binary; Master craftsman or university degree; interacted with school-leaving qualification |
Duration of the vocational training | Binary; 3–4 years, 4 and more years |
Period of time between the finishing of the occupational training and the start of the first job | Binary; 0 > duration > 3-month, 3-month \(\le\) duration < 1 year; duration \(\ge\) 1 year |
Log (wage) | Metric; log (average net wage per day) at the first job |
Full- and part-time | Binary; individual works full- (part-) time at the first job and 10 years later changes from full- to part-time and vice versa |
Individual mobility | |
Switching from STEM to non-STEM and vice versa | Binary; whether an individual switched from a STEM to a non-STEM occupation and vice versa, classification from the German Federal Employment Agency (KldB 88–3 digit) |
Upgrade/downgrade | Two discrete, ordinate variables; occupations are ranked with respect to their wages at the first job and 10 years after |
Change the employer | Binary; changing the employer after the vocational training for the first job; changing the employer between the first job and 10 years later |
Enforced firm change due to firm closure | Binary; whether an individual becomes unemployed due to the closure of the first employer’s firm |
Regional migration | Binary; whether individual moves to another labor market within the 10 years; additional interaction with STEM dummy |
(log) Distance of regional migration | Metric; (log) distance of the labor market migration between the first job and 10 years later in km (interacted with regional migration dummy) |
Migration from East to West Germany | Binary; migration from former East Germany to West Germany |
Unemployment periods > 3 month | Discrete; the number of unemployment periods with > 3-month duration within the 10 years |
Additional firms | Binary; an additional number of firms (from 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 +) where individuals worked within the 10 years |
Duration in employment | Metric, discrete; total number of days in employment (independent from employer) of individual \(i\) within the 10 years |
Firm characteristics | |
Firm age | Binary; whether the firm is up to < 5 years old |
Log (firm size) | Metric; log (number of employees in the firm) at the first job |
Share of women in the firm | Metric; at the first job |
Share of foreigners in the firm | Metric; additional for robustness check; not in the baseline model |
Share of human capital | Metric; the proportion of experts and specialists among all employees |
Average firm wage | Metric; additional for robustness check |
CHK effects | Card-Heining-Klein firm fixed effects (for robustness checks) |
Occupation and regional characteristics | |
Labor market size | Metric; log (number of employees in the occupational field and region of individual \(i\)) and interacted with an occupation dummy; both for time point \(t\) and the growth between \(t\) and \(t+10\) of individual \(i\) |
Academic competitors | Metric; \(\frac{number of employees holding a university degree}{number ofall employees}\) in the occupational field and labor market region of individual \(i\) and interacted with an occupation dummy; both for time point \(t\) and the growth between \(t\) and \(t+10\) of individual \(i\) |
\(ue\)-ratio | Metric;\(\frac{unemployed people }{employed people}\) in the occupation field and labor market region of individual \(i\) and interacted with an occupation dummy; both for time point t and the growth between \(t\) and \(t+10\) |
Labor market dummies | Binary variables; Labor market regions, according to Eckey et al. (2006) |
Cluster heterogeneity and fixed effects | |
Industry—Dummies | Binary variables |
Time—Dummies | Binary variables |