oa Blijvende gevolgen van een gebrekkige start?

Permanent effects of a bad start?

In this article, it is investigated whether non-optimal labour market entry (that is, temporary employment and overeducation in the first job) has enduring, negative consequences for later employment opportunities of individuals in the Netherlands. The empirical analysis is based on data from the Dutch part of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 2005 and 2006. The analytical sample contains maximally 828 respondents, who left initial education in the period 1970-2006 and of whom information is available about job characteristics of their first and current labour market position. The results suggest that a 'bad' labour market start has permanent, negative consequences for later employment opportunities of individuals, clearly supporting the entrapment hypothesis. Only the finding of a decreasing positive efect of temporary employment in the first job on the later chance of being employed in a temporary job proves some evidence for the stepping-stone hypothesis. Finally, there is some heterogeneity found in the effects of non-optimal labour entry, with regard to ethnicity and the macro-economic conditions under which cohorts enter the labour market.