Pathways into Unemployment Benefit II receipt

Abstract

"Unemployment Benefit II is the basic social security benefit for people of working age in Germany. This study investigates the reasons why people begin receipt by using data from the PASS panel survey. It contains a sample of households which started receiving benefits between 2008 and 2009. A vast majority of the respondents of this sample named unemployment as one reason for the benefit receipt. On the other hand, for 27 per cent unemployment was no reason. For this group, births and separations were the deciding factor. Long-term unemployment only played a role for a minority. We find significant differences between benefit recipients and the German working age population: In particular, new recipients have a poorer self-reported health and lower educational degrees than the rest of the population." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Fuchs, B. (2012): Gründe für den Arbeitslosengeld-II-Bezug: Wege in die Grundsicherung. (IAB-Kurzbericht 25/2012), Nürnberg, 8 p.