Abstract

This article illuminates when neighbourhood unemployment serves as a mechanism to explain stigma consciousness among the unemployed. In doing so, the article relies on the labelling approach and social contagion models to derive hypotheses about the effect of informal societal control and the scope of the employment norm. After combining rich survey data with highly reliable georeferenced administrative 1x1km grid cell data from Germany, multi-level models reveal an u-shaped association: The neighbourhood’s unemployment negatively affects the individuals' stigma consciousness up to an unemployment share of about 10% and positively affects the individual’s stigma consciousness when the local share exceeds the threshold of 30%. Especially the unemployed in neighbourhoods with pronounced income inequality and high neighbourhood unemployment report the highest stigma consciousness. Beyond highlighting the importance of local norms and how they shape individuals’ perceptions in general, the article sheds light on how employment norms operate differently on different spatial levels.