Gender Differentials in Unemployment Ins and Outs During the Great Recession in Spain

Abstract

The Great Recession has led to gender convergence in aggregate unemployment rates. In this paper we seek the sources of this recent convergence. We use Social Security records to study the determinants of unemployment ins and outs for men and women over the course of a whole business cycle, i.e. 2000-2013. We focus on Spain – a country hit hard by unemployment increases in downturns. We find an enormous decrease in job access rates during the recent downturn which reaches 15 pp. for men and 8 pp. for women. Lack of demand and negative state dependence emerge as key sources, affecting men more negatively than women. In a scenario of upcoming recovery, our simulations show that unemployment outs will increase particularly for short-term male unemployed, which suggests that gender convergence in unemployment rates will not persist for short-term unemployed workers. However, both male and female long-term unemployed - 64% of total unemployed workers, will face enormous difficulties to access a job even in an expansionary context.