Birds, Birds, Birds: Co‐Worker Similarity, Workplace Diversity and Job Switches. (2nd December 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hirsch, Boris; Jahn, Elke J.; Zwick, Thomas
• Is Part Of: British journal of industrial relations. Volume 58:Number 3(2020:Sep.)
• Page Start: 690
• Page End: 718
• Publication Date: 2019-12-02
• Subjects: Industrial relations -- Periodicals; 331
• DOI: 10.1111/bjir.12509
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0007-1080

Abstract

Abstract: 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.