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The intergenerational transmission of worklessness in Europe.The role of fathers and mothers

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  • Gabriella Berloffa
  • Eleonora Matteazzi
  • Paola Villa

Abstract

This paper investigates the intergenerational transmission of worklessness according the gender of parents and the gender of their children and across different groups of European countries. Based on EU-SILC 2005 and 2011 data, we document the existence of a positive intergenerational correlation of worklessness between mothers and daughters, which is quite stable over time and similar across country groups, except in Nordic countries. By contrast, maternal employment becomes important for their sons only in 2011, i.e. when youth labour market conditions are more stringent. The effects of fathers employment are less widespread, being systematically positive and significant only in Mediterranean countries. From a policy perspective, our findings call for new policy initiatives aimed at helping mothers of adolescents to enter, remain or reenter into paid work, but also helping children of non-working mothers to develop the necessary soft-skills and attitudes to be successfully included in the labour market.

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  • Gabriella Berloffa & Eleonora Matteazzi & Paola Villa, 2017. "The intergenerational transmission of worklessness in Europe.The role of fathers and mothers," DEM Working Papers 2017/04, Department of Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwprg:2017/04
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    youth; worklessness; intergenerational transmission; family background; gender; Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search

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