Take this job and keep it.
Zhang (2007), in a report for Statistics Canada reported that Canadian women were now no more likely to quit a job than men. The data analyzed were from the Longitudinal Worker File (LWF), an ongoing survey of a 10% sample of Canadian workers. In 1984, 5.5% of Canadian men quit their jobs, compared to 7.0% of women, but by 1994, the women's quitting rate had dropped to 5.6% while men's quit rate remained stable. In 2002, 7.6% of men and 7.7% of women had quit their jobs. While the study suggests that maternity leave is a major factor (4.2% of women took temporary maternity leave in 2002), it does not say whether Canadian legislation has changed the availability of maternity leaves during the period studied. The study also does not attempt to explain the dramatic rise in both men's and women's quit rates between 1994 and 2002.
In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a similar tool to the LWF, the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY). NSLY data is collected from a "nationally representative" cohort. (12,686 in 1979, and 9,000 for the 1997 cohort). Royalty (1998) concluded from NLSY-79 data that gender differences in voluntary job-to-job and job-to-unemployment mobility were due to the behaviour of less-educated women. The differences in job mobility were significantly different for less educated women than from more educated women, and men in both categories.
I never quit a job for pregnancy and never missed a day of work or school due to menstrual issues, but thinking about this article, I realize that I did quit a job to follow a lover. It seems like many of the heterosexual couples I know relocate based on the man's job prospects more readily than they do for the woman's job prospects. When the man is making more money than the woman, increased priority to his job seems to make financial sense, but if the woman's income is hampered by increased job leaving, then what does that prove?
In the United States, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has a similar tool to the LWF, the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth (NLSY). NSLY data is collected from a "nationally representative" cohort. (12,686 in 1979, and 9,000 for the 1997 cohort). Royalty (1998) concluded from NLSY-79 data that gender differences in voluntary job-to-job and job-to-unemployment mobility were due to the behaviour of less-educated women. The differences in job mobility were significantly different for less educated women than from more educated women, and men in both categories.
I never quit a job for pregnancy and never missed a day of work or school due to menstrual issues, but thinking about this article, I realize that I did quit a job to follow a lover. It seems like many of the heterosexual couples I know relocate based on the man's job prospects more readily than they do for the woman's job prospects. When the man is making more money than the woman, increased priority to his job seems to make financial sense, but if the woman's income is hampered by increased job leaving, then what does that prove?