Abstract:
Previous research on social mobility has primarily emphasized circulation mobility, leaving significant theoretical and empirical gaps in our understanding of structural mobility. We revisit the topic of structural mobility with three innovations. First, we define occupational restructuring using short-term and long-term occupational growth and decline. Second, we move beyond the limitations of traditional log-linear models by introducing a discrete choice model that integrates the effects of occupational growth and decline along with the constraints of job opportunities on worker mobility. Third, we leverage large-scale administrative data from the U.S. Occupational Outlook Handbook (2000-2020) to investigate how occupational restructuring affects workers’ mobility. Our results show that workers in both growing and declining occupations experience higher mobility than those in stable occupations. However, the direction of movement differs. Those in declining occupations tend to move laterally to other declining positions, often experiencing downward mobility. Conversely, workers in growing occupations have a wider range of mobility options, with many achieving upward mobility through higher-paying transitions. These results underscore how recent shifts in occupational structures exacerbate existing disadvantages for workers facing declining job opportunities.