Youth Employment in Europe: Institutions and Social Capital Explain Better than Mainstream Economics

Bruno Contini ()

No 4718, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Why did employment growth – high in the last decade – take place at the expense of young workers in the countries of Central and Southern Europe? This is the question addressed in this paper. Youth unemployment has approached or exceeded 20% despite a variety of factors, common to most EU countries. According to neo-classical economics all would be expected to exert a positive impact on its evolution: population ageing and the demographic decline, low labor cost of young workers, flexibility of working arrangements, higher educational attainment, low unionization of young workers, early retirement practices of workers 50+. But neither seems to provide a convincing explanation. Historically based institutions and political tradition, cultural values, social capital – factors that go beyond the standard explanation of economic theory – provide a more satisfying interpretation.

Keywords: youth employment; unemployment; social capital; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J0 J1 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2010-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hpe, nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4718.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Youth employment in Europe: do institutions and social capital explain better than mainstream economics? (2012)
Working Paper: Youth Employment in Europe: Institutions and Social Capital Explain Better than Mainstream Economics (2010)
Working Paper: Youth Employment in Europe: Institutions and Social Capital Explain Better than Mainstream Economics (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4718

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().