Explore the vast range of titles available.

Time-related underemployment (wanting to work more hours) has become an entrenched feature of a number of mature economies since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, recent short-run post-COVID labour shortages notwithstanding. Employment and unemployment rates are thus increasingly inadequate measures of labour utilisation and underutilisation. This paper develops novel 'Full-Time Equivalent' (FTE) employment and unemployment rates based on hours worked and hours wanted calibrated to a 37.5-h full-time week for the United Kingdom. FTE rates reveal greater labour market slack than evident in conventional measures, as well as lower utilisation and/or greater underutilisation among women, young people, low-skilled workers and in geographically and economically peripheral regions. The FTE employment rate shows statistically significant correlations with both earnings and labour demand across UK local labour markets, whereas the conventional employment rate fails to detect this relationship. The paper argues that the use of FTE metrics by policy makers would point towards, firstly, more demand-side labour market policies in weaker local labour markets rather than relying heavily on coercive supply-side labour market activation and, secondly, less hawkish monetary policy required to control inflation, which causes unnecessary harm to economically weaker regions.

This article uses seven waves of panel data to test for social norms in labor market status. The unemployed's well‐being is shown to be strongly positively correlated with reference group unemployment (at the regional, partner, or household level). This result, far stronger for men, is robust to controls for unobserved individual heterogeneity. Panel data also show that those whose well‐being fell the most on entering unemployment are less likely to remain unemployed. These findings suggest a psychological explanation of both unemployment polarization and hysteresis, based on the utility effects of a changing employment norm in the reference group.

Social comparison theory predicts that unemployment should be less distressing when the experience is widely shared, but does this prediction extend beyond the unemployed to those who are at risk of job loss? Research demonstrates a link between aggregate unemployment and employed individuals' perceptions of job insecurity; however, less is known about whether the stress associated with these perceptions is shaped by others' unemployment experiences. We analyze a nationally representative sample of Canadian workers (Canadian Work, Stress, and Health study; N = 3,900) linked to census data and test whether regional unemployment influences the mental health consequences of job insecurity. Multilevel analyses provide more support for the social norm of insecurity hypothesis over the amplified threat hypothesis: the health penalties of job insecurity are weaker for individuals in high-unemployment regions. This contingency is partially explained by the ability of insecure workers in poor labor market contexts to retain psychological resources important for protecting mental health.

The relationships between unemployment, mental health (care) and medication use among 50–65 year-old men (N = 11,789) and women (N = 15,118) are studied in Europe. Inspired by the social norm theory of unemployment, the relevance of regional unemployment levels and workplace closure are explored, using multilevel analyses of data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement. In line with the social norm theory, the results show that – only for men – displaced workers are less depressed and use less medication than the non-displaced unemployed. However, they report more depressive symptoms than the employed, which supports the causal effect of unemployment on mental health. Non-displaced unemployed men are also more likely to consume medication than the displaced unemployed. In addition, using regional unemployment as a proxy for the social norm of unemployment can be questioned when studying mental health effects, as it seems to be a stronger measurement of labour market conditions than of the social norm of unemployment, especially during a recession.

We analyze the space-time dynamics of Indonesia’s provincial unemployment by simultaneously accounting for their serial persistence, spatial dependence, and common factors. The results show that unemployment rates vary widely across provinces, but have similar patterns over time, indicating the presence of common latent factors. Using the average national unemployment rate as a proxy for common factors, the results indicate that the space-time dynamics of provincial unemployment are characterized by both significant serial persistence and spatial dependence. The results also quantify which regions are most sensitive to national unemployment shocks, providing a deeper understanding of regional unemployment heterogeneity.

Background It is a well-known phenomenon that nonlinearities that are inherent in the relationship among economic variables negatively affect the commonly used estimators in the econometric models. The nonlinearities cause an instability of the estimated parameters that, in particular, are unable to capture a local relationship between the response and the covariate. Objectives The main aim of the paper is the simultaneous consideration of spatial effects as well as nonlinearities through an advanced semiparametric spatial autoregressive econometric model. The paper seeks to contribute to empirical studies of regional science focused on the application of semiparametric spatial autoregressive econometric models. Methods/Approach We outline an approach that can be used to correct nonlinearities by incorporating a semiparametric idea within the framework of econometric models. We use an expansion by penalised basis splines that are highly flexible and are able to capture local nonlinearities between variables. Results In the empirical study, we fit different econometric models that attempt to explain the dynamics of the European Union's regional unemployment. Conclusions The results show that regional unemployment exhibits significant spatial dependence, indicating interconnectedness among neighbouring regions and suggesting the adoption of a semiparametric spatial autoregressive model for improved modelling flexibility, surpassing traditional parametric approaches.

BackgroundUnemployment has been negatively associated with psychological well-being. This study examines the effect of multiple unemployment spells, specifically whether people become sensitised or adapt to unemployment if they are previously employed or economically inactive.MethodsData come from waves 1–17 of the British Household Panel Survey. Psychological well-being was measured using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), and employment status was self-reported. Multilevel modelling was used to examine the effects of unemployment, overall and by previous employment status, on well-being.ResultsWithout consideration of prior employment status, psychological well-being was poorer at each unemployment spell. Previously employed persons had significantly higher GHQ-12 scores at the first and second unemployment spells but not at the third spell (ptrend<0.0001). Previously economically inactive persons had poorer psychological well-being at all unemployment spells, with significantly higher scores at the third spell than those at the first two spells (ptrend=0.0004). Thus, those employed prior to all unemployment spells adapted, while those previously economically inactive became more sensitised with additional unemployment spells. Pre-study unemployment and average annual household income moderated the effects of unemployment; effects varied by previous employment status and unemployment spell number.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that initially employed people who experience repeated unemployment cope better psychologically if they are able to regain employment in between unemployment spells. Those who make several attempts to re-enter the labour market following economic inactivity have a more difficult time, becoming more distressed with each try. This has implications for people affected by welfare to work policies.

While rising unemployment generally reduces people’s happiness, researchers argue that there is a compensating social-norm effect for the unemployed individual, who might suffer less when it is more common to be unemployed. This empirical study rejects this thesis for German panel data, however, and finds that individual unemployment is even more hurtful when regional unemployment is higher. On the other hand, an extended model that separately considers individuals who feel stigmatised from living off public funds yields strong evidence that this group of people does in fact suffer less when the normative pressure to earn one’s own living is lower. A comprehensive discussion reconciles these findings with the existing research and concludes that to find evidence for the often described social-norm effect it is worthwhile to analyse disutility associated with benefit receipts.

In this article, we empirically investigate regional unemployment in Russia. We first detect the existence of two unemployment clubs, that is, regions with high (low) unemployment surrounded by regions with high (low) unemployment, and a group that comprises the remaining regions. We then apply a specially designed class of spatial-econometric models to regional data 2005–2012, using difference GMM, and we obtain partial confirmation of our two main hypotheses: (i) spatial effects for the high-high and low-low clubs regions differ significantly; and (ii) the determinants of unemployment of the two clubs significantly differ with respect to those of the remaining regions. Our results have key implications for the national- and regional-level policies.

This article investigates the degree of spatial dependence of unemployment on neighbouring economies with possible implications for cross-border community development initiatives. The local municipalities within the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa are used as a case study. Spatial econometric techniques are employed that incorporate dependence between regions in close geographical proximity. Disaggregated data and knowledge about the dynamics at a sub-regional level are usually unavailable for designing employment policies, especially for regional economies in under-developed countries. The results suggest an absence of spatial unemployment clustering and autocorrelation between neighbouring economies. The absence of externalities implies that little mutual dependence exists between adjacent economies, and therefore municipal unemployment patterns can be viewed as spatially random. The economy of a region is therefore fundamentally heterogeneous in that its unemployment rates are determined and influenced by its unique and diverse factors rather than neighbouring unemployment trends or patterns.