Understanding work, your own included

Many people occupy a different position from their parents. A large share of those movements says nothing about how open the society is.

The accident of graduation year produces earnings gaps still measurable ten years later. The result is among the most solid in labour economics.

The finding has been stable for forty years and in every country measured. Successive reforms have not reversed the gradient.

The longer a spell without work lasts, the lower the probability of leaving it. Separating selection from the effect of duration itself required particular designs.

The phrase describes an invisible barrier. Translating it into statistics requires showing that the gap widens at the top of the hierarchy, which is not always verified.

The share of short contracts in hiring has risen sharply, while their share in employment has barely moved. The two figures describe different things.

The employment rate of older workers has risen sharply in France over twenty years. It coexists with a difficulty in returning to work that has not moved.

Changing occupation may be a promotion, a fallback or a constraint. Available statistics separate those three cases poorly.

Three different figures circulate for France, and all are accurate. They measure nested gaps whose decomposition is the real subject.

Comparing a qualification with a job, a job with one's parents' or a job with one's expectations does not measure the same thing nor the same people.