Doubly disadvantaged: Unemployment,young age,and electoral participation in the United Kingdom

Previous studies examine how unemployment affects socio-political behaviour, but this literature has scarcely focused on the role of the life-course. Integrating the frameworks of unemployment scarring and political socialisation, we posit that unemployment experiences, or scars, undermine electoral participation, and that this is exacerbated at younger ages. We test these hypotheses relying on the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society datasets (1991–2020), employing panel data analysis approaches as Propensity Score Matching, Individual Fixed Effects, and Individual Fixed Effects with Individual Slopes. Results suggest that unemployment experiences depress electoral participation in the UK, with effect sizes around −5% of a Standard Deviation in turnout. However, this effect varies powerfully by age: the impact of unemployment on electoral participation is stronger at younger ages (−21% SD at age 20), and weaker to not significant after age 35. This is robust across the three main approaches and several robustness checks. Further analyses show that the first unemployment spell matters the most for electoral participation, and that for individuals under 35, there is a scar effect lasting up to 5 years after the first unemployment spell. The life-course emerges as central to better understand the relationship between labour market hardships and socio-political behaviour.     

The Work Profiler: Revision and maintenance of a profiling tool for the recently unemployed in the Netherlands

For the public employment services of many Member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the importance of using profiling tools for job seekers is increasing rapidly in importance. With this trend, there is also widening concern about the risks of an over reliance on such tools. Part of the concern lies with a lack of transparency concerning how such tools work. This article aims to address this by offering a detailed investigation of the Work Profiler – the instrument used in the Netherlands by the Institute for Employee Benefits (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen – UWV) to predict re-employment success and provide a diagnosis of key factors hindering job seekers’ return to work. Professionals use these insights to deepen their understanding of the situation of job seekers and decide together with job seekers how to support their return to work. UWV decided to maintain and revise the Work Profiler through a large-scale study involving a sample of 53,238 people. Work Profiler 1.0 was developed in 2007–2010 and has been in use on a regional basis since 2011 and nationwide since 2015. This article explains how the new tool (version 2.0; implemented in 2018) works and, most importantly, demonstrates the choices made to ensure that it functions well and is used effectively by professionals. These latter two aspects are rarely discussed in the literature.     

Cross-country disparities in skill premium and skill acquisition

Skilled individuals are rewarded more in poor than in rich countries. Why aren't more individuals acquiring skills in poor countries? We document that the unemployment rate of the skilled net of that of the unskilled decreases with a country's level of development. Using a matching model of occupational choice and skill acquisition, we quantify the role of barriers to enter entrepreneurship for these unemployment rates, skill premium and acquisition. The cross-country correlation between skill premium and acquisition decreases by 45% when each country's gap to the US in the entrepreneurship barrier is decreased enough to even the unemployment differential.     

欧盟就业政策及其对我国再就业政策的启示

近年来，失业阴影不仅笼罩着整个西方世界，发展中国家的就业状况同样不容乐观。本文以新一轮世界经济发展和我国再就业工程现状为背景，在分析欧盟就业状况及其政策思路的基础上，提出了借鉴欧盟有关经验，进一步优化我国再就业政策的建议。