The labour market segmentation: empirical analysis of Cain's theory (1976)

Abstract

Criticisms addressed to the theory of the human capital take mainly into account the specificity of the labour market. Doeringer and Piore (1971) and Cain (1976) highlight the influence of the situation on the labour market on the individual wage determination. This influence has been studied for various countries (Theodossiou and Yannopoulos, 1998; Yuhong and Johnes, 2003). Sloane et al. (1993), Orr (1997) and Roig (1999) shed light especially the existence of labour market segmentation. On the contrary, for Van Ophem (1987), the theory of the segmentation of the labour market has been to be rejected. Following this, the aim of this article is to test the existence of the labour market segmentation described by Cain (1976) for the case of France on the last twenty years. The use of various statistical techniques allows us to check on the one hand, the connection between the qualifications and the place occupied on the labour market and on the other hand to identify the existence of several labour markets.