Using representative linked employer-employee data of the German Federal Employment Agency, this paper shows that just one out of seven full-time employees who earned low wages (i.e., less than two-thirds of the median wage) in 1998/99 was able to earn wages above the lowwage threshold in 2003. Bivariate probit estimations with endogenous selection indicate that upward wage mobility is higher for younger and better qualified low-wage earners, whereas women are substantially less successful. We show that the characteristics of the employing firm also matter for low-wage earners' probability of escaping low-paid work. In particular, small plants and plants with a high share of low-wage earners often seem to be dead ends for low-wage earners. The likelihood of leaving the low-wage sector is also low when staying in unskilled and skilled service occupations and in unskilled commercial and administrative occupations. Consequently, leaving these dead-end plants and occupations appears to be an important instrument for achieving wages above the low-wage threshold.Keywords Low-wage employment · Wage mobility · Germany

Using German SOEP data, 1999SOEP data, -2009, this study analyzes state dependence in low-wage employment of western German women, where we distinguish between full-time and part-time working. We estimate a dynamic multinomial logit model with random effects and find that having a low-wage job -compared to having a high-wage job -ceteris paribus decreases the probability of being high-paid in the future. This negative effect is significantly larger for part-time jobs than for full-time jobs. We find mixed evidence for a low-pay-no-pay cycle: compared to being high-paid, having a low-paid job increases the risk of being unemployed in the next period only for part-time workers. However, concerning future wage prospects low-paid women are clearly better off than unemployed or inactive women. We argue that for women low-wage jobs can serve as stepping stones out of unemployment and are to be preferred to staying unemployed and waiting for a better job. New JEL-Classification: J30; J60; C35

This study investigates how the effects of low‐wage employment and non‐employment on wage prospects vary depending on qualification. Based on theories on signalling effects, human capital and job search, we discuss why there may be heterogeneity in state dependence in both labour market states. We find that episodes of low‐wage employment incur a significantly lower risk of future non‐employment than episodes of non‐employment for low‐qualified workers. In contrast, for workers with a middle or high level of qualification the risk of non‐employment is not significantly different when being low‐paid instead of not employed.

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This article investigates whether there is state dependence in the gender composition of managers in German establishments; that is, whether the number of hired female managers depends on the past hiring decisions of an establishment. Using administrative data, the authors apply dynamic linear models, thereby accounting for unobserved heterogeneity and the endogeneity of lagged dependent variables. Results show that hiring female managers leads to the hiring of more female managers in the subsequent period. Hiring rates for male managers follow a similar pattern in that they are more likely to hire more male managers.