Distribution and determinants of lifetime unemployment

Achim Schmillen and Joachim Möller

Labour Economics, 2012, vol. 19, issue 1, 33-47

Abstract: The empirical literature on unemployment almost exclusively focuses on the duration of distinct unemployment spells. In contrast, we use a unique administrative micro data set for the time span 1975–2004 to investigate individual lifetime unemployment — defined as the cumulative length of all unemployment spells over a 25-year period. This new perspective enables us to answer questions regarding the long-term distribution and determinants of unemployment for birth cohorts 1950–1954. We show that lifetime unemployment is highly concentrated on a small part of the population. With censored quantile regressions we investigate the long-lasting influence of bad luck early in the professional career: Controlling for individual and firm characteristics we find that choosing at a young age what turns out to be an unfavorable occupation significantly increases the predicted amount of lifetime unemployment.

Keywords: Lifetime unemployment; Censored quantile regressions; Occupation-specific human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:19:y:2012:i:1:p:33-47

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2011.06.013

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