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Abstract

Vol. 59, No. 4, pp. 340-356 (2008)

“Irregular Employment as the Lower Tier of Internal Labor Market”
Yuji Genda (Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo)

This paper examines the hypothesis for internalization of irregular employment by the original data of more than 3000 non-regular and unmarried individuals. The previous dual labor market hypothesis claimed that irregular workers belong to the secondary market: they lack of on-the-job learning opportunities, and earnings do not reflect ability and experiences. However, our study finds a positive correlation between working years and annual payment even for atypical workers. And their payment reflects previous experiences of regular employees. These results suggest that not a small proportion of irregular workers are actually treated as the lower tier of internal labor market.