Professional cyclic high mobility: modelling state transitions

This paper aims to investigate the combination of exogenous and dynamic endogenous variables in professional high mobility patterns. It is based on a panel dataset of the Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe research project conducted between 2007 and 2011 in Germany, France, Spain and Switzerland. Cyclic professional high mobility is often considered as an emerging phenomenon since it has not been a lot investigated yet. The general idea that people flows are increasing with time is very common. Analyzing professional mobility states with a dynamic multinomial logit model with individual random effects permits to developp this statement. To do that, we account for previous situations as explanatory variables to focus on the state transitions in the labour market. Moreover, we approximate an initial state to avoid any endogeneity issue. Ongoing research also combine quantitative and qualitative analysis with a latent lifestyle variable model. The individual choice set consists of three states (alternatives) which are not being highly mobile for work, being a long distance commuter or being an overnighter. First results show significant disparities between men, who are more impacted by the context of the labour market, and women, who are more subject to household characteristics. We find the presence of a state dependence that is also not the same across the different cyclic professional (non-)mobile states. Estimations suggest that overnighting is a more temporary pattern than long-distance commuting.