Regional Unemployment, Gender and Time Allocation of the Unemployed

José Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal () and José Alberto Molina
Additional contact information
José Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal: University of Zaragoza
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Jose Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal ()

No 7043, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationship between time allocation decisions of the unemployed, gender, and regional unemployment rates. Using the Spanish Time Use Survey 2002-2003 and 2009-2010, we find that higher regional unemployment rates are associated with increases in the time devoted to study by men, and to household production by women, and with decreases in the time devoted to personal care by men and leisure by women. We also find evidence favoring consumption smoothing as the channel through which others' unemployment affects time allocation decisions of the unemployed. As higher regional unemployment rates imply a lower availability of jobs for the unemployed, it decreases the expectations individuals have of finding a job, and thus households may try to increase their time spent on household production to reduce the market expenditures needed to maintain their consumption. We interpret our results as evidence that others' unemployment has several effects that need to be considered in the analysis of the wellbeing of the unemployed during business cycles.

Keywords: regional unemployment rates; time use; unemployment; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-geo, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Review of Economics of the Household, 2014, 12 (1), 105-127

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp7043.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Regional unemployment, gender, and time allocation of the unemployed (2014)
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:dp7043

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 ().