RSSE: Cristina Bratu (VATT Institute for Economic Research) Inside Opportunities and the Career Trajectories of Marginal Workers

It is our pleasure that Cristina Bratu (VATT Institute for Economic Research) will present on Thursday, April 16, 2026, at 12:45 in room RB437 about the topic “Inside Opportunities and the Career Trajectories of Marginal Workers”.

Registration is not required and anyone who would like to attend is warmly invited.

It is also possible to participate online via MS Teams at this link. In case of any connection issues, please contact lubomir.cingl@vse.cz.

ABSTRACT: We study how workplace entry conditions affect the early careers of marginal workers -- low-skilled workers and immigrants -- using Swedish administrative data and document four key findings. First, around 40% of marginal workers concentrate in one of four entry occupations: care workers, salespersons, cleaners, and restaurant helpers. Second, focusing on these top four entry occupations, positive career moves follow two patterns: either workers advance within the same workplace-occupation pair, or transition simultaneously across both boundaries. Third, workers entering workplaces with greater opportunities, in terms of higher paying positions, within their starting occupation experience higher rates of wage and earnings progression. Fourth, similar opportunities in other occupations within the initial workplace do not positively correlate with these types of upward moves. Jointly, these patterns suggest that wage dispersion within jobs matters more for marginal workers' career progression than the presence of internal occupational ladders.

BIO: Cristina Bratu is a senior researcher at the VATT Institute for Economic Research in Helsinki. She works on questions broadly related to immigration and urban economics. She obtained her PhD in Economics from Uppsala University in 2019. For more information about her work, please visit her personal website.