Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. Der lange Beobachtungszeitraum der Daten ermöglicht für Westdeutschland auch Aussagenüber die Entwicklung der langfristigen Lohnmobilität und damitüber die langfristigen Aufstiegschancen in der Lohnverteilungüber einen Zeitraum von bis zu 24 Jahren. Es zeigt sich, dass Männer -ähnlich wie in der kurzen Frist -eine deutlich höhere Aufstiegsmobilität als Frauen aufweisen. Jedoch haben sich diese geschlechtsspezifischen Unterschiedë uber die Zeit verringert, da die Aufwärtsmobilität für Frauen in der langfristigen Sicht leicht zu-und für Männer leicht abgenommen hat.
Das Wichtigste in Kürze
Non-technical summaryStudying wage dynamics has been a key element of labor economics for a long time. One major finding is the widening of the wage distribution in most developed countries that started in the 1970s in several countries. In Germany, rising wage inequality was mainly driven by the disproportional wage increases in the upper-tail of the wage distribution in the 1970s before the lower-tail wage inequality started to increase since the 1990s as well. However, as long as individuals are able to move up the earnings distribution, a high degree of cross-sectional wage inequality is likely to exaggerate the extent of wage inequality over a working life.Thus, for any analysis of the evolution of lifetime wage inequality it is important to also take individual wage mobility over time into account. Wage mobility is defined as the change of an individual's relative position in the wage distribution between two periods. To this end, I make use of the regional file of the employment subsample of the Research Institute of the German Federal Employment Agency (SIAB data), which contains a 2% random sample of all social security records between 1975 and 2008 that cover approximately 80% of the overall German workforce. This paper gives a descriptive overview of the evolution of wage inequality and wage mobility separately for men and women in West and East Germany over the last four decades. The results show that the increase in wage inequality was accompanied by a decrease in wage mobility for both sexes in West and East Germany. Women face a higher level of wage inequality and a lower level of wage mobility than men in West and East Germany throughout the entire observation period. The mobility decline was sharper in East Germany so that the level of wage mobility has fallen below that of West Germany. Overall, the impact of wage mobility on reducing wage inequality has become...