Why Do Pensions Reduce Mobility?

Previous studies have found that workers who are covered by pensions are much less likely than other workers to leave their jobs, but the evidence on how specific pension characteristics affect turnover is inconclusive. This paper examines how mobility is affected by vesting standards, the compensation level, and the capital loss of pension wealth for job changers. In two different data sets, we find that the capital loss is strongly associated with lower turnover rates, whereas vesting and the compensation level have relatively little impact. Large capital losses are mainly associated with lower layoff rates rather than lower quit rates.