Voluntary Mobility of Employees for Better Job Opportunities Given a Temporary Contract: Insights Regarding an Age-Varying Association Between the Two Events

What mechanisms govern the probability of voluntary mobility to seek better job oppor- tunities, given a temporary contract? We attempt to answer this question by exploring the issue in some Southern and Central European countries. We use cross-sectional data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey for the 2005–2016 period. We estimate a flexible simultaneous equation model for binary responses by including a third predictor equation to model the copula association parameter between voluntary mobility and having a temporary contract as a function of employee age. Our results suggest that being young, being better educated, and earning a low hourly wage are the characteristics of employees who move for better jobs. In most of the countries explored, we also find a significant association between voluntary mobility and having a temporary contract, which is less strong for young than for middle-aged employees.