Dual Labor Markets Revisited

This article provides an overview of empirical and theoretical research on dual labor markets. It revisits the labor-market effects of dual employment protection legislation as well as the main factors behind its resilience. Characterized by a high incidence of temporary contracts, which may lead to stepping-stone or dead-end jobs, dual labor markets exhibit specific features regarding the determination of employment, unemployment, churn, training, productivity growth, wages, and labor market flows. Relying on the contrasting experiences of several OECD countries with different degrees of duality and, in particular, on the very poor employment performance of some EU countries during the Great Recession, lessons are drawn about policy-reform strategies aiming to correct the inefficiencies of dual labor markets.