Forschungsgruppe

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Projekt

Social, Demographic, and Health Consequences of Job Loss for Individuals and Their Families (Dissertation)

Rishabh Tyagi, Christian Dudel, Peter Eibich, Mikko Myrskylä, Vegard Skirbekk (Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Centre for Fertility and Health, Oslo, Norwegen)

Ausführliche Beschreibung

This PhD project assesses the social, demographic, and health consequences of job loss for individuals and their families. This is a classic topic in sociology, demography, and allied disciplines (Jahoda 1981, 1982; Newman 1988).

The project is based on four studies:

The first study assesses the effect of men’s unemployment on marital relationships and changes in time-use dynamics and household work. Classic sociological studies suggest that loss in social status and social identity is core to the experience of men’s unemployment and that they play a key role in the negative impact of unemployment on marital relationships (Jahoda et al. 1933; Komarovsky 1971). Through the lenses of these theories, we analyze the extent to which male breadwinner norms established at the societal and individual levels moderate the relationship between unemployment and marital stability. We test the hypothesis that men born in West Germany are more likely to divorce following unemployment than East German men because West Germany has stronger male-breadwinner norms. We also compare the divorce and time-use outcomes for migrants from egalitarian countries with those of migrants from traditional gender-role countries.

In the second study, we investigate how the job loss of men (or women) affects their fertility decisions. Specifically, we analyze the impact of plant closures on fertility in Norway between 1999 and 2014, using high-quality register data. Previous research by Kravdal (2002) for Norway and using data from 1992 to 1998 has suggested that the negative effect of unemployment on fertility is more pronounced among men than it is among women. We use plant closures as exogenous shocks to study the causal effects of job loss on first and second childbirth, employing panel regression techniques. We expect similar probabilities for males' and females' transitions to first birth following unemployment, because gender inequality in the household and the labor market has improved in recent years.

In the third study, we assess the long-term impact of job loss on children’s mental health and labor-market outcomes. Rege et al. (2011) estimated the extent to which children's school performance is affected by their parent's exposure to plant closure, using Norwegian register data. They have found that fathers’ exposure to plant closure leads to a substantial decline in the grade point average of children’s graduation years. The exposure of mothers, by contrast, leads to improved school performance. It will be interesting to see if the children of those parents who lost their job are disadvantaged in the labor market and to see if the decline in their children’s mental health is short-term or persists longer. The age of the children at which the parents lost their job and the gender of the parents losing the job might also play a crucial role in their mental-health trajectory and labor-market outcomes.

The out-migration of migrant workers following job loss is poorly measured. The last study focuses on the causes of differential out-migration rates between migrant groups (EU versus non-EU) due to job loss, using Norwegian register data.