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Everything you ever wanted to know about measuring worklessness and polarization at the household level but were afraid to ask †

Everything you ever wanted to know about measuring worklessness and polarization at the household... I. Introduction Analysis and examination of labour market data usually relies on information collected on individuals. In most cases this information is simply averaged across the economy as a whole to produce estimates of, say, unemployment or employment rates. Unemployment measures serve to capture two, rather different, issues. First, they can proxy the extent of labour market slack and hence potential inflationary pressure in the economy. Second, they can be used as a measure of the extent of social distress and exclusion. On first inspection, the state of the labour market in a country like Britain looks healthy. Britain now has an ILO unemployment rate around 5 percent, (the lowest for twenty five years), and an employment rate close to that observed at previous cyclical peaks, which is, currently, also one of the highest in the industrial world. However, this good news is not matched by other measures of social distress based on household level data. Poverty and inequality amongst the working age population are inordinately high, especially among families with children (see DSS 1999 ). In addition, there is evidence, ( Gregg and Wadsworth 1999 ) that joblessness is now increasingly concentrated on certain groups and in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Oxford Bulletin of Economics & Statistics Wiley

Everything you ever wanted to know about measuring worklessness and polarization at the household level but were afraid to ask †

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References (14)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company
ISSN
0305-9049
eISSN
1468-0084
DOI
10.1111/1468-0084.63.spe1.9
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

I. Introduction Analysis and examination of labour market data usually relies on information collected on individuals. In most cases this information is simply averaged across the economy as a whole to produce estimates of, say, unemployment or employment rates. Unemployment measures serve to capture two, rather different, issues. First, they can proxy the extent of labour market slack and hence potential inflationary pressure in the economy. Second, they can be used as a measure of the extent of social distress and exclusion. On first inspection, the state of the labour market in a country like Britain looks healthy. Britain now has an ILO unemployment rate around 5 percent, (the lowest for twenty five years), and an employment rate close to that observed at previous cyclical peaks, which is, currently, also one of the highest in the industrial world. However, this good news is not matched by other measures of social distress based on household level data. Poverty and inequality amongst the working age population are inordinately high, especially among families with children (see DSS 1999 ). In addition, there is evidence, ( Gregg and Wadsworth 1999 ) that joblessness is now increasingly concentrated on certain groups and in

Journal

Oxford Bulletin of Economics & Statistics – Wiley

Published: Sep 1, 2001

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