Definition Of Unemployment Research Articles

Testing the Oswald hypothesis with Australian census data 2001-2016

The Oswald hypothesis is that home ownership reduces mobility and through that channel results in poorer labor market outcomes. There has been only limited previous evidence on the Australian case. Here we use data from the first four Australian censuses of the twenty-first century, aggregated at the smallest geographical areas for which statistics are released. We propose testing the Oswald hypothesis by estimating the effect of home ownership on the full-time employment rate. Modelling the unemployment rate, as is often done in testing the hypothesis, produces implausible results with respect to the control variables, most likely due to the limitations of the official definition of unemployment. We find that, in modelling the full-time employment rate, the control variables for educational and demographic factors have the theoretically plausible effects, while variables capturing rates for both outright home ownership and with mortgage home ownership are positively related to full-time employment rates, with the effect of the former stronger than the latter. Our findings strongly contradict the Oswald hypothesis.

Review of “The Misuse, Misrepresentation, and Politicization of Statistics in American Society”

In this book, Robert E. Parker discusses four major statistics collected by the US federal government: the unemployment rate, life expectancy, crime rates, and the decennial count of populations. He argues that each are flawed and help maintain the neoliberal status quo. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a strict definition of unemployment (the jobless need to report engaging in specific job-seeking activities to be classified as unemployed), so reliance on the official unemployment rate paints an overly rosy picture of the economy. Policy entrepreneurs point to growth in life expectancies to advocate for increasing the retirement age for Social Security and other pension plans, without acknowledging that this growth is unequal by race and class (and is also driven by reductions in infant mortality). The FBI Uniform Crime Report feeds into a popular preoccupation with “street crime” and does a poor job of enumerating cybercrimes and white-collar crime, which arguably are more costly than street crime. The decennial census undercounts children and Black and Latino residents in the United States, preventing the proper representation of those populations in the House of Representatives and also making it harder for social service agencies to target resources at populations that need them.

The Actual U.S. Unemployment Rate in 2019 Was Twice the Official Rate, and the Phillips Curve

The official U.S. unemployment rate is an inadequate measure of labor market conditions. This poses a major challenge for basic research and for successful economic policy. In this piece, the author proposes a new definition of unemployment is proposed. It considers those part-time workers who would like to work full time as 62.7% employed and 37.3% unemployed inasmuch as this is the proportion of time they work relative to full-time workers. New monthly estimates of the unemployment rate are calculated for the period 1994–2019 and find that their average during this 25-year period was 10.7% or 5.0 percentage points above the official rate of 5.7%.

БЕЗРОБІТТЯ ЯК СОЦІАЛЬНО-ЕКОНОМІЧНА ПРОБЛЕМА ПРИЧОРНОМОРСЬКОГО РЕГІОНУ УКРАЇНИ

The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of unemployment as a socio-economic problem in the regions of Ukraine in the context of the spread of coronavirus. It is established that a person who lost his job suffers not only material loss, but also socio-psychological. Person loses social status, the psychological tension increases, and the circle of communication narrows. The author’s interpretation of the definition of unemployment as a socio-economic problem, which is characterized by forced unemployment of the economically active population, which arises as a result of imbalance in the labor market, caused primarily by economic crisis and ineffective socio-economic policy is proposed. The factors that cause the problem of unemployment in the Black Sea region of Ukraine are substantiated. Exogenous and endogenous factors of unemployment of the population of Ukraine are considered. The territorial structure of the unemployed population in the regions of Ukraine is studied. The age structure of the unemployed population of the Black Sea region of Ukraine is analyzed. Unemployment has been proven to be a negative phenomenon, as it does not create equal opportunities for the development of human potential of the population of the Black Sea region and its market capitalization. It is established that unemployment has a negative impact on all spheres of life in the country. Among the social consequences of unemployment are the strengthening of social tensions and deepening social inequality, the aggravation of the criminal situation in society, the marginalization of the population. Four phases of development of a specific crisis state, through which an unemployed person goes, are studied. Strategic principles for overcoming unemployment in the regions of Ukraine are proposed, which includes a number of tasks that contribute to the development of human potential. In particular, there are: increasing public access to information; development of dual education; increasing the attractiveness of vocational education among young people; formation of conditions for lifelong learning.

The Actual U.S. Unemployment Rate Was 24.4% in May 2020

The official U.S. unemployment rate is an inadequate measure of actual labor market conditions. This poses a major challenge for researchers and confuses both the public and policy makers. A new definition of unemployment is proposed. It considers those part-time workers who would like to work full time as 62.7% employed and 37.3% unemployed, inasmuch as this is the proportion of time they worked relative to full-time workers prior to the pandemic. In addition, in contrast to the BLS, we consider those workers who are wanting to work but have not searched for work within the prior month as being unemployed. We find that the actual unemployment rate in May 2020 was 24.4% or 183% of the headline rate of 13.3%.

UNEMPLOYMENT AS A BASIS FOR SOCIAL SECURITY UNDER MARKET ECONOMY CONDITIONS

The article discusses a wide range of issues related to the appearance of the right for social security connected with the outset of unemployment and partial unemployment. These are the grounds for the right for social security benefits and services. Therefore, the effectiveness of social right protection of the unemployed in Ukraine depends on the correct understanding of their legal nature. There is no legal definition of such a term as unemployment risk in the Ukrainian legislation. Instead, the known definition of unemployment as a social economic phenomenon in which some people are not able to implement their right for work and wages (remuneration) as a source of livelihood. Based on the late statistical data, the author concludes that the gradual decrease in the number of unemployed, which, however, still keeps being high – more than nine percent of the economically active working population. However, the legislation of Ukraine does not define unemployment as the basis for the appearance of right for social protection. There is a concept of unemployment insurance risk instead. These are the circumstances leading to the loss of jobs, need of financial support and social services. The author argues the imperfection of such definition and proves that person’s inability to find a job leads to employment. Thus, he has come up with his own definition of unemployment, which is a condition of an economically active able-bodied person, ready and willing to work but unable to find a job. The author delineates the risk of partial unemployment from unemployment, draws attention to the poor definition of the concept of partial unemployment and as a consequence of the inappropriate narrowing of the circle of persons who are entitled to benefits in connection with its occurrence. The author arrives at this conclusion by analyzing the legislative definition of the concept of partial unemployment as a compulsory temporary reduction of the working time stipulated by law in connection with the stoppage of production due to economic, technological and structural nature without termination of employment. Partial unemployment is expected to relate exclusively to workers employed in industrial production in connection with the reduction of working time under the circumstances that do not depend on the employee and the employer’s will, but on accidents, fires, terrorist acts, wars, natural disasters (earthquakes, storms, floods, tornadoes, etc.). These are all circumstances that lead to, or may lead to, a temporary reduction in the working time of workers in any sector of the economy, not just industry. Therefore, the right to partial unemployment benefits should be applied to all workers without exception.

TÜRKİYE VE AFGANİSTAN’IN İŞSİZLİK SORUNU ÜZERİNE KARŞILAŞTIRMALI BİR ANALİZ

Bu çalışmada öncellikle işsizliğin tanımı ve Türkiye, Afganistan ekonomisi üzerinde etkili faktörlerden bahsedilmiştir. Bilindiği üzere işsizlik bir ülkenin kalkınmasının önündeki en büyük engel olarak tanımlanmaktadır. Bu nedenle Türkiye ve Afganistan`ın işsizlik oranlarını ve etkileyen faktörlerini kısaca aktarılmaya çalışılmaktadır. Yapılan araştırmalar sonucunda Türkiye ekonomisi için 2000-2016 dönemleri arasında işsizlik ile büyüme oranları arasındaki ilişki Dünya bankası verileri kullanılarak grafik üzerinde çalışmada gösterilmektedir. Afganistan`da işsizliğin temel sebepleri ise günümüzde belirli nedenlere dayanmaktadır. Sovyetlerin işgalinden başlamak suretiyle Taliban rejiminin ortaya çıkması, Afganistan halkının komşu ülkelere mülteci olmaları ve halada devam eden Taliban ve benzeri terör örgütlerin faaliyet göstermeleri sonuncunda devletin kalıcı istikrarlı politikasının olmayışı işsizliği artıran sebepler olarak açıklanmıştır.

Thirty Years of Urban Bias: An Estimation of the Rising Disparities in Female Rural and Female Urban Unemployment and Income in Egypt

This article highlights the disparities between female urban and rural employment and income in Egypt over the last decades, mainly resulting from urban bias policies. Despite their inferior educational levels, females in rural Egypt manifested higher levels of employment than their counterparts in urban Egypt, a phenomenon that the article attributes to the standard definition of unemployment, which includes unpaid family members as part of the ‘employed’, besides other methodological issues. As such, statistics could misleadingly imply better female rural income compared to female urban income. By means of an innovative attempt to estimate female rural and urban incomes, this article provides some evidence that female rural per capita income accounts for only 0.43 of female urban per capita income, despite rising from 0.2 in 1981. The female rural/urban gap was mitigated when female national incomes rather than female per capita incomes were estimated, with female rural national income accounting for nearly 0.73 of female urban national income.

La nada y el tiempo. La gubernamentalidad temporal del desempleo

Unemployment is not just an economic category but is constituted by governmentality (Foucault, 2010), most evidently by the increase of interventions into the lives of the unemployed through Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP). Furthermore, the International Labour Organization (ILO) definition of unemployment as being without work, available for work and seeking work is a shifting classification which categorises unemployment on multiple temporal horizons, with the passive element of being without work increasingly superseded by the emphasis on seeking work. Through biographical interviews with unemployed in Ireland, spanning from 2012-2018, we trace this transformation of temporality empirically and conclude that governmentality constitutes multiple, contradictory, indefinite forms of time. Particularly, we offer an imaginative reading of two overlapping temporalities: Kairos, waiting, enduring, suffering nothingness in anticipation of transformation by getting a job, and Cronos, not cyclical time, but the devouring of time, where the days and leisure of the unemployed people are deliberately consumed by job-seeking. Ironically, states implement ALMPs in the kairotic hope of transforming their economy, yet these policies do little but make the experience of unemployment even harder to endure.

THE ASSESSMENT OF UNDERUTILIZATION OF LABOUR FORCE IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION REGIONS

During recent years the changes, occurring in the sphere of employment policy in the labour markets, as well as gradual introduction into practice of various countries of gathering information in the context of labour activity forms resulted in the need of the revision of earlier adopted international standards. It’s connected with the fact that in normative documents is presented the definition of unemployment without the criterion of «job search»; were adopted new indicators for the measurement of potential labour force, incomplete employment and underutilization of labour force. In article analyses the situation of underutilization of labour force since it’s important for the characteristic of the region in the context of the unsatisfied need in employment. The information, offered in the paper, can be used for the wider monitoring of labour market, for the researches of volume and trends in the sphere of unemployment, for the assessment of integration problems at the labour market and the interaction between employment and poverty, for forecasting of trends of regions’ socio-economic development.

The impact of definitions in classifying the employed, unemployed and inactive when comparing measurements from different sources

In all large-scale sample surveys and the census, gender, age, marital status, educational and occupational variables are included as background variables to provide information necessary for defining subpopulations and “contexts in which respondents’ opinions, attitudes, and behavior are socio-economically embedded”. Because these background variables play such a central role in social research, establishing their measurement’s cross-national and overtime comparability is essential and consequently, international classifications have been developed. However, in the case of the employment status, i.e. one of the occupational variables, all large-scale sample surveys and the census use a perception question for its measurement whereas the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) is using a synthesized economic construct according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) conventional definitions of the employed, unemployed and inactive. In this paper, we investigate the classification issues arising from these two different measurements. The analysis is based on the 2008-2014 EU-LFS annual datasets and the 2001 and 2011 Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS)-International census datasets for Eastern (Hungary, Poland, Romania) and Southern (Greece, Portugal and Spain) Europe. The results are reported for the age group 15–74 so as to allow for comparability with the ILO conventional definition of unemployment.

THE LABOR MARKET IN CITY SKARYSZEW

The article discusses the issues of unemployment on the basis of a given labour office. The aim of the study is to present the situation of the unemployed inhabiting the area of action of the Poviat Labour Office in Skaryszewie. The definition of unemployment was characterised along with its kinds and types. During the analysis of the research problem, domestic literature and statistical data was used to depict the scale of the phenomenon of unemployment on a given area. The time span of the research were years 2016 and 2017. The authors conclude that during the researched period the situation on the labour market in Skaryszew improved which was caused by smaller numbers of the unemployed and more forms of help offered to them.

What is the Best Index for Unemployment?

A regular activity in all human societies is the evaluation and control of important socioeconomicindices. Unemployment rate is one of these indices, which is very important in evaluating andapplying policies for control or preparation of desired changes in economy; in fact, it is a challengefor policy makers. Employment and unemployment are 2 words that have different definitions amongpeople and professional centers of statistics. Since the statistics and methods applied for calculatingIranian employed and unemployed people have been provided by Statistical Center of Iran (SCI), thecomparison of these definitions with recommended ones defined by International labor organization(ILO) may project 2 different items. In accordance with the definition of unemployment by ILO andSCI, each person who works at least 1 to 2 hours a week, even without receiving money, is consideredas an employed person, otherwise is named as unemployed. Considering this definition, a newquestion may arise: in Iran, with consideration of location, subsistence, and labor market conditions,could people be satisfied with their living situation? Perhaps in some countries, this definition may beoperational but not for Iranian worker community; in fact, no one in Iran and many other countrieswould be satisfied with one-hour work per week as an employed person.

Comment

Comment

Unemployment in Africa

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish the concept of unemployment defined by the International Labour Organisation appears to be too narrow within the context of many African countries including Ghana. This phenomenon tends to put many jobless adults into the discouraged worker category thereby giving a misleading picture about the unemployment situation in these countries. In addition, the structure of the labour market in many African countries is such that informality takes the face of unemployment. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a scatter plot and simple correlation analysis to show a trade-off between informality or vulnerability of employment and unemployment rates in Africa. The paper also adopts descriptive approach based on simple diagrams to show the extent of discouraged worker effect on the phenomenon of unemployment. Findings – The paper finds a significantly negative correlation between unemployment and informality in Africa. Beside the high level of informality that hides the face of unemployment, the exclusion of many discouraged workers in estimating unemployment underrates the seriousness of the phenomenon. The paper therefore recommends the adoption of a broader definition of unemployment that accounts for discourage workers and underemployment to show the true picture of labour market challenge in Africa. Additionally, targeted programmes to support and transform the informal sector is required to make it a more attractive means of employment rather than being seen as a refuge point for the unemployed in Africa. Originality/value – The observation that unemployment should be looked at from a broader perspective that accounts for discourage workers to inform policy design forms a base of the paper’s contribution to the body of literature. In addition, the high level of informality that hides the problem of unemployment shows that labour market challenges should not be restricted to unemployment but low quality of employment that characterises informality as well.

Youth Unemployment After Apprenticeship Training and Individual, Occupation, and Training Employer Characteristics

SummaryThis paper analyses the risk of unemployment, unemployment duration, and the risk of longterm unemployment immediately after apprenticeship graduation. Unemployed apprenticeship graduates constitute a large share of unemployed youth in Germany but unemployment incidence within this group is unequally distributed. Our paper extends previous research in three dimensions. It shows that (i) individual productivity assessment of the training firm, (ii) initial selection into high reputation training firms and occupations, and (iii) adverse selection of employer moving graduates are correlated with unemployment after apprenticeship graduation. The empirical evidence is obtained from the second longitudinal version of the linked employer-employee panel data from the IAB (LIAB). This large data set allows us to calculate the exact unemployment spell length of apprenticeship graduates. In addition, we can include individual, employer, occupation as well as industrial relation characteristics before and after apprenticeship graduation into our list of explanatory variables for unemployment risk. We show in several robustness checks that our results are remarkably stable when we vary the employees included in the sample, the definition of unemployment, and the list of explanatory variables.

SEPARATING SOCIAL WELFARE SERVICES AND SOCIAL WELFARE GRANTS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

As a consequence of the fundamental reconstruction and development processes, including alarge-scale macroeconomic stabilisation strategy, South Africa’s economic growth hasconsistently averaged 3% over the last decade. It is expected that the government’s newAccelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) will increase theeconomic growth rate from its current level to 4.5% by 2010 and 6% by 2014 (Yemek, 2006).Yet with the majority of its citizens living in poverty (with less than $1 per day), South Africaremains one of the most unequal societies in the world (Statistics South Africa, 2004).Although there has been some improvement over the last decade, the stubborn legacy ofapartheid persists and can be seen in the concentration of poverty and underdevelopment inblack communities. Twenty four million of South Africa’s population of 45 million are blackfemales who live below the poverty datum line (Statistics South Africa, 2004). Using theexpanded definition of unemployment, Statistics South Africa (2004) estimated that 41% ofthe economically active population was unemployed in 2004. There is, therefore, growingconcern that the strategies employed thus far to raise the unacceptably low standards of livingof South Africa’s vulnerable populations, who continue to lack access to basic services andemployment opportunities, are lagging far behind what is needed.

New evidence on subjective well-being and the definition of unemployment in South Africa

Access to new nationally representative, individual-level panel data from South Africa has allowed for the revalidation of Kingdon and Knight's discussion on the definition of unemployment. This paper investigates subjective well-being as a measure of comparison between labour-market statuses. It finds that on the grounds of subjective well-being the non-searching unemployed (or ‘discouraged’) are significantly worse-off than the not economically active. Moreover, evidence suggests that, with regard to the relationship between life satisfaction and labour-market status, the non-searching unemployed consistently are the worst-off. This is especially true of both the young and senior non-searching unemployed; however, the findings are largely driven by the African subsample. This paper does not advocate for a change in the official definition of unemployment but does advocate for the inclusion and recognition of the non-searching unemployed in policy relating to labour and development in South Africa.

Desempleo entre los jornaleros agrícolas, un fenómeno emergente

The objective of this work is to introduce a phenomenon that has not been proposed in the study of agricultural labor markets and rural employment. This text questions the traditional definition of unemployment and discusses how this definition, which is in use by the National Statistics Institute (inegi), is applied in formal labor markets, but not in the informal realm. Finally, this work compares the national and rural levels and uses case studies to conclude and reinforce the initial thesis of increased unemployment in rural labor markets.This work highlights gender differences and concludes that rural unemployment affects women more than men, contrary to the phenomenon at national level.

A Review of Unemployment Insurance in Thailand after Nine Years of Implementation

Thailand implemented its unemployment insurance (UI) scheme in 2004. The program aims at mitigating the unemployment shock and reducing of workers’ vulnerability. This report uses the data from the Labour Force Survey conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) and secondary data from the Social Security Office (SSO). The report also includes findings from interviews with stakeholders. We find that the unemployment rates among insured workers were lower than 1.5 percent during the period of 2004-2001, except in 2009. During the global financial crisis, the unemployment rate among insured workers increased to 2 percent. UI beneficiaries in Thailand mostly voluntarily quit their job. About 50 percent of voluntarily unemployed who receive the UI benefit are in age groups 25-29 and 30-34. Most UI beneficiaries are employees earning low wages, a situation that makes the average benefit per beneficiary low. In interviews with UI beneficiaries in four provinces, we find that about 46 percent of them have a secondary or lower level of education. We recommend that Thailand’s UI system should make it clear about the definition of unemployment and the duplication of unemployment compensation and should revise its eligibility requirement and improve administration of the UI Fund.