Abstract
Lifetime jobs are generally considered a central feature of the postwar labour market and contrasted with insecure and unstable jobs predominant in the post-Fordist economy. This paper argues that the literature would gain from more precise data on the prevalence of lifetime jobs. Using a new methodological approach, this article finds that the share of UK workers who held a lifetime job in the postwar era was low, with important variations across sociodemographic groups. The importance of long-term jobs, but not lifetime jobs, has decreased among men born between 1947 and 1966, partly driven by decreasing job stability during youth.