On the distribution among people of unemployment in a cohort- related long-term examination : study based on the example of male workers born in the period 1925 to 1930

Abstract

"It is a known fact that, seen in the short-term and medium-term, unemployment is distributed very unevenly among the workers and only a minority of the workers is affected by it. Around half of the volume of unemployment in Germany has for some time been concentrated on the 10% of the unemployed (outflow cohorts) with the longest periods of unemployment. So far, however, it is not known how unemployment is distributed when entire employment histories of age cohorts are examined in the long-term. Is a majority of all the workers affected at some time or other or is the volume of unemployment of age cohorts heavily concentrated here too on a small section of the workers, who in the course of their working life repeatedly become unemployed and are thus all in all jobless for a long time? In this paper first results are presented from an evaluation, geared to this question, of employment history data from the 'supplementary sample I' of the IAB employment sample. Men born in the period 1925-1930 with a virtually uninterrupted employment history in employment subject to social security in the period under observation between 1955 and 1995 were selected as the group of persons to be surveyed. The evaluation shows that also when viewed with regard to employment history there is a very unequal distribution with regard to being affected by unemployment and the cumulative duration of unemployment in the age cohorts under observation: about 54% of the group observed had never been unemployed between 1955 and the beginning of retirement (between 1985 and 1995), and more than half of the total number of days of unemployment experienced by the entire group since 1955 had affected the 10% of the workers with the longest cumulative periods of unemployment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Kurtz, B. & Scherl, H. (2001): Zur interpersonellen Verteilung von Arbeitslosigkeit in kohortenbezogener langfristiger Betrachtung. Untersuchung am Beispiel männlicher Arbeitnehmer der Jahrgänge 1925 bis 1930. In: Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Vol. 34, No. 2, p. 127-136.