This is a study of the effects of corporate downsizing on older workers. This research uses matched data from Current Population Surveys and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Mass Layoff Series to explore the relationships among internal labor markets, mass layoffs, workers' ages, and the probabilities of job displacement. Specific hypotheses that explain these relationships are generated from two different institutional theories from sociology -- "symbolic efficiency" and "internal dualism"-- and from one microeconomic theory -- Lazear's mandatory retirement theory. These hypotheses will be evaluated at the individual level of analysis allowing statistically generalizable statements about age group specific displacement probabilities under different contextual circumstances. Worker displacements, especially those which result from corporate downsizing, have become a lightening rod for criticism and concern about U. S. economic performance. Although unemployment is relatively low by contemporary standards, the number and type of recent displacements are troubling insofar as they have been interpreted as signaling a change in the basic fabric of our country's employment relations. In particular, many observers have taken dismissals of long-term workers as convincing evidence that durable and stable relationships between employers and workers have disappeared in an era of contingent work. Empirical questions like those examined in this study need to be addressed before this conclusion can be taken seriously. In addition to this project's contribution to verifying different social science propositions about employment relationships, it will also provide important background information for policy analysts in this area of social life. For example, it will be possible to examine age-group specific displacement probabilities with and without controls for both other individual characteristics (e.g. education) and for industry level characteristics (e.g. pension coverage in the industry) .
