Beschreibung

"Recent research on social inequality and the family has pointed out that partners provide an important social context for individuals' decisions, behaviour and resulting social outcomes. Unemployment is a particularly interesting issue to be studied in the context of partnership, as unemployment and the ensuing loss of income of one partner might affect the whole family, and fast re-employment reduces the risks of economic uncertainty and deprivation of the family. However, the particular effects of the partner and his or her resources on unemployment of the other and its duration have not yet been fully explored. In our paper we examine how couples deal with each other's unemployment, i.e. whether and how quickly re-integration into the labour market occurs. We look at the effects of different kinds of partner's resources, in particular financial assets and social capital. Applying job search theory, one would expect that the more financial support the partner can provide, the longer an unemployment episode would last, whereas the higher the partner's social capital, the more likely a job offer is to occur. Economic theories assume negative effects of both the partner's financial resources and social capital on the other's re-employment chances, either due to specialisation gains in the joint household or due to individual maximising of bargaining power that keeps the better-off partner from sharing resources. Whereas these theories are gender-neutral, gender role theories predict differential effects of the partner's resources for women and men. If a male partner provides a high income during his wife's unemployment this could prevent her from taking up work again. In the opposite case, this relationship of available resources and unemployment duration could be weak or non-existent. This 'gender asymmetry' should be modified by two characteristics: first, the birth cohorts the partners belong to, and second, whether or not they have children. Empirically, we test these hypotheses using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), a longitudinal household survey. Based on this data source we analyse the effects of the partner's resources on unemployment duration by applying event-history models. We find a partnership premium for men, whereas married women are least likely to leave unemployment. Regarding the role of different resources of the partner, men gain from their spouse's labour market resources. Surprisingly, for women the partner's income accelerates re-employment. However, this finding is mediated by the fact that in a traditional male breadwinner model the female minor earner refrains from re-entering paid work. Furthermore, we cannot detect historical changes, but strong differences for women with and without children." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))