The determinants of state civil service attractiveness

In this paper, we investigate some determinants of the state civil service attractiveness over the period 1980 - 2012. The attractiveness is measured by the number of candidates in 23 key competition exams and the selectivity of these competitions. Potential determinants are: unemployment rate, public - private wage gap, assessment of likelihood of success by the number of offered posts in competition exams and size of the pool of potential candidates. For most of the competition exams, every determinant is statistically significant. The number of candidates is affected by the unemployment rate as well as the number of offered posts whatever the competition exam category. The wage gap is also a determinant of the attractiveness except for the C competition exam category. The size of the potential candidates pool has an effect except for teachers competition exam. Each competition exam has a different sensitivity to these determinants.