Ageing and Type of Employment Affect Workers' Ability to Anticipate Their Employment Prospects

To what extent do individual cognitive biases in anticipating position stability reflect and reproduce structural socioeconomic inequalities?

The Korean Longitudinal Survey on Aging 2006-2020 allows estimating the probability of keeping one's position six years ahead at each wave. Respondents are also asked to anticipate their probability of remaining in position five years ahead. The gap between these two underlying log-hazard rates quantifies agents' error regarding their professional future.

With age, both anticipated hazards and underestimation increase. Underestimation increases over anticipation time. Unpaid family workers are influenced by family environment and residence; self-employed workers by housing, siblings and the suitability of their education for the position held; daily wage earners by children, consumption, savings and sector of activity; temporary wage earners by variables linked to extended family; regular wage earners by personal success variables.

A recommendation is to provide tables for position retention by covariate built from a representative longitudinal survey, such as the one used.