Louise Grogan Tinbergen Institute and University of Amsterdam
This paper investigates worker flows in Russia. Information on
elapsed durations of job tenure from the 1994-1996 Russian Longitudinal
Monitoring Survey (RLMS) and from retrospective work history responses
to the Institute for Labor Relations Research (ISITO) 1998 household survey
is used. Competing risks models for durations of job tenure with
multiple destination states are estimated. Patterns of transitions
between sectors and to non-employment are identified for different demographic
groups. Rates of worker flows and direct job-to-job transitions are
found to be very high in comparison with Western European and other transition
countries. These results contradict the commonly-accepted proposition
that substantial declines in real wages have substituted for the reallocation
of workers in Russia.