Unemployment, well-being, and the moderating role of education policies: A multilevel study

This article aims to investigate if education policies moderate the association between unemployment and well-being among young adults. Based on the capability approach, we argue that education policies mitigate the negative effects of unemployment by providing opportunities for education and thus ways to exit unemployment. Education policies can strengthen capabilities, enhance the control that individuals have over their situation, and thereby reduce the stress associated with unemployment. We estimated cross-level interactions between education policies and unemployment status using multilevel methods and data from the European Social Survey. Results showed that policies that increase educational opportunities—such as generous second chance opportunities—were associated with smaller negative effects of unemployment on well-being and that this moderating impact was stronger for young adults with low education. Further analyses show that education policies are also associated with perceived capabilities among unemployed, supporting the proposed mechanism

The effect of an early-career involuntary job loss on later life health in Europe

Recent years have witnessed an increase in interest towards the long-term health consequences of early-career job loss and youth unemployment. Relying on detailed retrospective data from the third wave (2008/09) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) this paper investigates whether an involuntary job loss in the first 10 years after labour market entry has lasting negative effects on health more than 30 years later. The results show that an early-career involuntary job loss due to a layoff or plant closure increases the probability of fair or poor self-rated health in late life by about 6 percentage points. Moreover, examining the mechanisms behind this relationship, the analysis reveals that the subsequent unemployment risks and employment instability only explain a small share of the total effect. In line with previous studies, these findings highlight the importance of early career experiences for workers’ later life health

Interdependencies between labour market insecurity and well-being: Evidence from panel data

Mettre en perspective les Disability Studies britanniques avec les pistes ouvertes par le perfectionnisme moral invite à questionner deux frontières qui, par hypothèse, sépareraient pour l’une le eux - qui seraient-ils ? - du nous - qui serions-nous? - , différencieraient pour l’autre l’avant de l’après. Stanley Cavell propose d’appréhender le perfectionnisme sous l’angle d’une invitation à se positionner, à prendre part: le lecteur d'une oeuvre, au cours de sa lecture, se trouve invité par l..

The economic and non-economic consequences of job loss, unemployment, and inadequate re-employment in Germany and Europe

Kumulative Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2019Job loss and unemployment are major social problems in modern market economies. Understanding their consequences is of key concern to the social sciences. Against this background, this cumulative thesis examines the economic and non-economic consequences of job loss, unemployment, and inadequate re-employment in Germany and Europe. In addition to five articles, it contains an overview article which motivates the research questions, reviews the state of research and highlights the contributions of this thesis, develops a general theoretical model, presents the research designs, and summarizes the main findings before drawing conclusions. The first article examines the impact of job losses on the careers of workers in Germany. I distinguish between displacements due to plant closures and job losses due to dismissals and analyze their short- and long-term effects on workers’ subsequent labor market statuses, labor incomes, and risks for non-standard employment. The results show that both events have lasting negative effects on employment, total labor incomes, earnings, and hourly wages and increase the risks of self-, part-time, and temporary employment. The second article analyzes the effects of unemployment on non-monetary job quality in Europe. Taking a quantitative comparative perspective, I investigate to what extent the effects of unemployment on subsequent occupational status, autonomy, authority, and job security are moderated by countries’ economic situation and institutions, including active and passive labor market policies in addition to employment protection legislation. The findings reveal negative effects on all four facets of non-monetary job quality in most of the countries studied. However, I find no consistent empirical evidence for the moderating role of the economic situation and labor market policies. In the third article, my co-author and I focus on the decisions of unemployed people when to accept or reject a job offer. Comparing an overeducated labor market re-entry with the situation of remaining unemployed and continuing the job search for adequate re-employment, we find that it increases unemployed individuals’ long-term employment chances. However, it also implies strong lock-in effects into overeducation for several years after re-employment. In the fourth article, my co-authors and I focus on the non-economic consequences, investigating the long-term health effects of an early-career job loss. We find that job losses due to plant closures or layoffs have a lasting negative impact on health more than 30 years later. We also show that subsequent unemployment risks and employment instability only explain a small share of the total negative effects. The fifth article highlights the interrelation between the career and family domains, examining the consequences of job loss for couples’ division of housework and total housework hours. My co-author and I show that increases in unemployed spouses’ total housework hours are not offset by decreases in partners’ time implying an expansion next to a reallocation. We also show larger increases in housework by unemployed men than women, although husbands spent more of their extra time on male-typed activities, whereas wives increase their hours more through routine chores. This article further reveals that couples react immediately to unemployment, challenging arguments that they need time to adapt or that men withdraw from housework the longer they remain non-employed. In summary, the results presented in the five articles highlight the far-reaching consequences of job loss, unemployment, and inadequate re-employment for the careers and lives of workers, including their families

Replication files for "Losing standard employment in Germany: The consequences of displacement and dismissal for workers’ subsequent careers"

These are the replication files for the following publication: Voßemer, J. 2019. "Losing standard employment in Germany: The consequences of displacement and dismissal for workers' subsequent careers" Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. Published online. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2019.10042

Losing standard employment in Germany: The consequences of displacement and dismissal for workers’ subsequent careers

This study examines the effects of job loss on workers’ subsequent careers in Germany. To provide a comprehensive picture, I distinguish between displacement due to plant closure and dismissal and simultaneously analyze the effects on workers’ subsequent labor market statuses, labor incomes, and non-standard employment risks. The results show that both events have lasting negative effects. Five years after job loss, displaced and dismissed workers have 12 and 15 percentage point lower employment chances respectively. Although this is mostly explained by higher unemployment risks, more than a third is due to displaced and dismissed workers leaving the labor force entirely, especially via (early) retirement. Moreover, I find large short-term total labor income losses which are mainly explained by lower employment chances and reduced working hours but falls in hourly wages become relatively more important as time passes. Five years after job loss, the negative effects on hourly wages still amount to 6 percent for displaced workers and 8 percent for workers who were dismissed. With respect to non-standard employment, I show that both displacement and dismissal increase the risks of self-employment, part-time employment, and temporary employment with only the latter being transitional in nature

Unemployment and housework in couples: Task‐specific differences and dynamics over time

Objective: The authors tested competing hypotheses about the effects of unemployment on couples' division of housework and total household production. Background: Gender‐neutral and gender‐based theories make opposing predictions on the reactions of couples. Few previous studies have tested these predictions using longitudinal data. This study extends research by examining how the effects of unemployment vary with gender, specific tasks, and over time. Method: Fixed effects models were applied to estimate the associations of unemployment with both partners' total, neutral, female‐typed, and male‐typed housework hours. The analyses were based on 12,183 couples from the Socio‐Economic Panel, 1991 to 2015. The Socio‐Economic Panel is a nationally representative household panel survey of the German adult population. Results: This study found stronger associations for unemployment of husbands than wives with own and spouses' total housework hours and an expansion of the total household production. The changes were immediate and remained constant over time. The patterns for specific tasks resembled the main results, but for wives, the associations were stronger with female-typed tasks whereas for husbands they were stronger with male-typed tasks. Conclusion: The authors conclude that the division of housework following unemployment is better explained by gender‐neutral theories of time availability or relative resources. Whereas the task‐specific findings are also consistent with a gender‐based perspective, the finding that men increased their routine chores immediately and substantially is at odds with strict interpretations of gender display or deviance neutralization

Replication files for "Unemployment and housework in couples: Task‐specific differences and dynamics over time"

These are the replication files for the following publication: Voßemer, J. & Heyne, S. 2019. "Unemployment and housework in couples: Task‐specific differences and dynamics over time" Journal of Marriage and Family. Published online. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.1260