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Scars that will not Disappear: Long-term Associations between Early and Later life Unemployment under Different Welfare Regimes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2014

MARTINA BRANDT  and
KARSTEN HANK
MARTINA BRANDT
Affiliation:
MEA – MPI for Social Law and Social Policy, Amalienstr. 33, 80799 Munich, Germany email: [email protected]
KARSTEN HANK
Affiliation:
ISS – University of Cologne, Greinstr. 2, 50939 Cologne, Germany email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Exploiting retrospective data from the SHARELIFE project, we investigate long-term associations between early and later life unemployment spells of at least six months in a sample of more than 13,000 men and women from eleven European countries. Our findings provide, first, evidence for significant differences in the life-course pattern of unemployment occurrence between welfare state regimes. Second, childhood conditions are shown to bear significant associations with the odds of experiencing periods of unemployment throughout one's employment career. Third, and finally, our analysis confirms previous research in that we provide clear evidence for long-term scarring effects, showing that they are indeed permanent ones, as we observe them even among older workers close to retirement. The paper concludes with a discussion of perspectives for future research.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 2014 , pp. 727 - 743
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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