Informal Job Search and Black Youth Unemployment

Harry Holzer

No 1860, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In this paper I analyze how young black and white unemployed jobseekers use various methods of search, and the employment outcomes which result from their use.The focus is on distinguishing informal search methods (i.e.,friends and relatives or direct application without referral) from more formal ones in analyzing racial differences.The results show that the two informal methods of search account for about 90% of the difference in employment probabilities between white and black youth. This also accounts for 57-71% of the difference in unemployment rates between the two. Furthermore, most of these results reflect differences in the ability of these methods to generate job offers, as opposed to differences in search effort or job acceptance rates. However, our ability to explain these differences through personal, family, and household characteristics was generally quite limited.

Date: 1986-03
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Holzer, Harry J. "Informal Job Search and Black Youth Unemployment," American Economic Review, Vol. 77, No. 3, June 1987, pp. 446-452.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w1860.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Informal Job Search and Black Youth Unemployment (1987)
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:nbr:nberwo:1860

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w1860

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().