Markov models of occupational mobility: Theoretical development and empirical support. Part 2: Continuously operative job systems

This paper, consisting of two parts, presents an analysis of the current state of Markov model building for intragenerational occupational mobility. Part 1 examined models of careers; Part 2 analyzes models of continuously operative job systems. In Part 2 we find considerable predictive power for the simple MC model of personnel flows and the job vacancy chain model. Major analytical work has extended in two primary directions: the theoretical conceptualization of job vacancies to further explicate the underlying causal structure of mobility and the use of control theory to shift the focus to manpower decision making and policy formulation. Moreover, the diversity of job systems in which the models have been tested points to their general applicability.

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School of Urban and Public Affairs, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.