Table 6. Percentage of wage earners for combinations of period t-1 and period t quintiles.
Yearly transitions, 1993-1994 and 2002-2003.
|
Wage earner mobility, 1993-1994 (755,56 |
4 obs) |
Wage earner mobility, 2002-2003 (750,735 obs) | |||||||||||
|
From |
To quintile |
From |
To quintile | ||||||||||
|
quintile |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Total |
quintile |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Total |
|
1 |
14.1 |
3.2 |
1.0 |
0.5 |
0.2 |
19.0 |
1 |
14.9 |
3.5 |
0.5 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
19.2 |
|
2 |
3.8 |
12.7 |
3.5 |
0.8 |
0.2 |
21.1 |
2 |
2.6 |
14.1 |
4.1 |
0.6 |
0.1 |
21.5 |
|
3 |
0.6 |
4.4 |
12.2 |
3.6 |
0.4 |
21.3 |
3 |
0.5 |
3.2 |
13.3 |
4.0 |
0.3 |
21.3 |
|
4 |
0.3 |
0.7 |
4.2 |
13.1 |
2.6 |
20.8 |
4 |
0.3 |
0.6 |
3.3 |
13.9 |
2.5 |
20.6 |
|
5 |
0.1 |
0.1 |
0.3 |
2.9 |
14.3 |
17.9 |
5 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
0.3 |
2.2 |
14.5 |
17.4 |
|
Total |
18.9 |
21.2 |
21.3 |
20.8 |
17.8 |
100.0 |
Total |
18.4 |
21.5 |
21.5 |
20.9 |
17.7 |
100.0 |
The mobility matrices presented in Table 4 and Table 6 are based on individuals whose
occupational status remains unchanged throughout the period. It is interesting to see to whether
occupational shifts do in fact covary with upward movements. In Table 7 mobility matrices for two
types of change from period t to period t-1 are presented: shift from wage earner to small business
owner and from self-employment or closely held firm to owner of widely held firm. The latter shift
captures the effect of changing the organizational form of the business, whereas the former captures
the more traditional effect of leaving employment to run a business. Ideally, one should also explore
the shift from being a (real) wage earner to running a business through a widely held firm. However,
our data are not perfect, and we base our identification of owners of widely held firms on information
from the end of the period; categorizations in preceding years are based on imputations (see Section
3.1).
The mobility matrices of Table 7 indicate a benefit from shifting occupation from wage
earner to small business owner in terms of position in the income hierarchy; see the left hand side of
the table. The proportion of “shifters” in quintile 5 at time t, for instance, is larger than the proportion
in quintile 5 in period t-1 for all three transitions presented in Table 7.
With respect to the organizational shift of owners of small businesses (from self-employment
and closely held firm to widely held firm), these individuals, crucially, are overrepresented in quintile
5 both before and after the organizational shift (see the right hand side of Table 6), and income
positions are less influenced by the transition; if anything, we can observe a small decrease in
proportions in quintile 5 (especially for the 1998-1999 transitions).
16