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.