Job Tenure in Britain, 1975-2000. Is a Job for Life or Just for Christmas?

We use household survey evidence to assess whether job tenure has changed in Britain over the last twenty years and, if so, which individuals are affected and what are the possible causes. After first reconciling apparently conflicting evidence from two separate data sources, we show that small falls in job tenture measures at the aggregate level disguise more obvious changes across age and gender. For nearly three quarters of the workforce, men and women without dependent children, job tenure has fallen over the past twenty-five years. Job tenure has risen only amongst women with dependent children, driven, we believe, by the increasing propensity of women to return to the same employer after child birth. Allowing for the cycle, the results suggest that there has been only a modest increase in short-term employment spells, but more dramatic falls are observed among long-term jobs. The decline in long-term jobs is most pronounced for older workers. The changing nature of jobs on offer, specifically the movement from full-time to higher turnover part-time, temporary jobs or self-employment and the changing industrial composition of the workforce can explain around one quarter of these trends. These developments do not appear to be influenced by the level of educational attainment