TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lang,Kevin
AU  - Dickens,William T.
TI  - Labor Market Segmentation, Wage Dispersion and Unemployment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4073
PY  - 1992
Y2  - May 1992
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4073
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4073.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kevin Lang
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA  02215
Tel: 617/353-5694
Fax: 617/353-4001
E-Mail: lang@bu.edu

William Dickens
School of Public Affairs
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland  20742-1821
Tel: 301 405-3494
E-Mail: wtdickens@gmail.com
AB  - This paper briefly reviews the empirical evidence on labor market segmentation and presents some new results on the similarity of the pattern of segmentation across 66 different countries. The paper goes on to consider how unemployment might be understood in a labor market segmentation framework. Existing models of unemployment in a dual labor market suggest that unemployment should be concentrated among those who are ultimately employed in high wage jobs. In fact, unemployment seems to be concentrated among workers who are more likely to be found in low wage jobs. This happens even though at least some workers find low wage jobs easy to obtain, We develop a segmented labor market model capable of explaining these facts and then explore its implications for the aggregate unemployment rate. We find that it fits well with the facts.
ER  -