Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1997, Economics

Despite its negative characteristics such as low wages, limited fringe benefits, and deficient job security, part-time work has grown from fifteen percent of total employment in 1969 to eighteen percent in 1993. Two distinct hypotheses of worker demand for part-time work have emerged: the equilibrium hypothesis, which views part-time work as an alternative to nonwork or full-time work, and the stepping-stone hypothesis, which has a more dynamic flavor, that part-time work is a stepping-stone to full-time work. This study focuses on the role of part-time work in the labor market entry process as youths end their formal schooling.For youths who are new entrants in the labor market and ineligible for unemployment compensation, part-time work might be a compromise between the need to perform intensive search and the need to eat. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979-1993, the youth labor market entry process is analyzed by employing two models: a competing risks model of nonemployment duration to the first post-school part-time or full-time job based on weekly data; and a Markov chain model of the evolution of annual work states early in the career.The duration model of nonemployment is the more standard of the two. Nonparametric estimation of the competing risks model with semiparametric baseline hazards, observed heterogeneity, and unobserved heterogeneity reveals that the baseline hazards are significantly distinctive; unobserved heterogeneity is positively correlated; the full-time baseline hazard shows no duration dependence for males (for females, negative duration dependence is observed until a turning point) while the part-time baseline hazard demonstrates no monotonicity; effects of observed heterogeneity differ among destinations and demographic groups; and there exist significant racial differences in the hazard functions.The two-year transition probability matrices indicate a great deal of work state stability and a considerable dissimilarity (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Donald O. Parsons (Advisor); Stephen R. Cosslett (Committee Member); Masanori Hashimoto (Committee Member) Subjects: