Birds, birds, birds: Co-worker similarity, workplace diversity and job switches

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We investigate how the demographic composition of the workforce along the sex, nationality, education, age and tenure dimensions affects job switches. Fitting duration models for workers’ job‐to‐job turnover rate that control for workplace fixed effects in a representative sample of large manufacturing plants in Germany during 1975–2016, we find that larger co‐worker similarity in all five dimensions substantially depresses job‐to‐job moves, whereas workplace diversity is of limited importance. In line with conventional wisdom, which has that birds of a feather flock together, our interpretation of the results is that workers prefer having co‐workers of their kind and place less value on diverse workplaces.
Original languageEnglish
JournalBritish Journal of Industrial Relations
Volume58
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)690-718
Number of pages29
ISSN0007-1080
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.09.2020

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© 2019 The Authors. British Journal of Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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