Is There a Business Cycle Effect on the Incidence of Dual Job Holding?

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which the incidence of dual job holding is cyclically sensitive in the context of hours constraints on a worker’s weekly labor supply to their main job. Random effects logit models of the probability of dual job holding are estimated separately for men and women for each of three mutually exclusive, hours-constrained regimes: overemployment, unconstrained hours, and underemployment. As measured by the deviation of each individual’s current regional unemployment rate from their time-averaged mean regional unemployment rate, transitory business cycle movements have no effect on the probability of dual job holding. However, a permanent/steady-state increase (decrease) in the local unemployment rate reduces (raises) the probability of dual job holding among hours-unconstrained workers for both males and females. Furthermore, permanent employment contracts reduce the likelihood of having two jobs.