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Background: The concept of schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) emerged from observations of personality characteristics common in relatives of schizophrenic patients. While often studied in family designs, few studies and none with genetic measures, have examined SPD in epidemiological samples. Methods: We studied individuals born in Sweden 1940–2000 with an ICD-10 diagnosis of SPD with no prior schizophrenia (SZ) diagnosis (n = 2292). Demographic features, patterns of comorbidity, and Family Genetic Risk Scores (FGRS) were assessed from multiple Swedish registries. Prediction of progression to SZ was assessed by Cox models. Results: SPD was rare, with a prevalence of 0.044%, and had high levels of comorbidity with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), OCD, ADHD, and major depression (MD), and increased rates of being single, unemployed and in receipt of welfare. Affected individuals had elevated levels of FGRS for SZ (+0.42), ASD (+0.30), MD (+0.29), and ADHD (+0.20). Compared to cases of schizophrenia, they had significantly lower rates of FGRSSZ, but significantly elevated rates of genetic risk for ASD, MD, and ADHD. Over a mean follow-up of 8.7 years, 14.6% of SPD cases received a first diagnosis of SZ, the risk for which was significantly increased by levels of FGRSSZ, male sex, young age at SPD diagnosis and an in-patient SPD diagnosis and significantly decreased by comorbidity with MD, ASD, and ADHD. Conclusions: Our results not only support the designation of SPD as a schizophrenia spectrum disorder but also suggest potentially important etiologic links between SPD and ASD and, to a lesser extent, ADHD, OCD, and MD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do negative economic shocks heighten public opposition to immigration, and through what mechanisms? Extant research suggests that economic circumstances and levels of labour market competition have little bearing on citizens' immigration attitudes. Yet personal economic shocks have the potential to trigger the threatened, anti-immigration responses – possibly through channels other than labour market competition – that prior cross-sectional research has been unable to detect. To examine these propositions, we used a unique panel study which tracked a large, population-based sample of Americans between 2007 and 2020. We found that adverse economic shocks, especially job losses, spurred opposition to unauthorized immigration. However, such effects are not concentrated among those most likely to face labour market competition from unauthorized immigrants. Instead, they are concentrated among white male Americans. This evidence suggests that the respondents' anti-immigration turn does not stem from economic concerns alone. Instead, personal experiences with the economy are refracted through salient socio-political lenses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address complex social problems, such as long-term unemployment, local authorities in many countries are developing "holistic" or "integrated" services, where multiple actors and professions collaborate with a view to better meet the needs of the individual citizen. By breaking with existing practices and regulations, collaborative services must be legitimized in new ways so as to appear acceptable not only in the eyes of the public and politicians, but also to caseworkers and the long-term unemployed persons. This article examines the multifarious and sometimes neglected efforts to make these collaborative services legitimate in the eyes of this plurality of stakeholders on multiple levels of governance. Our study indicates three distinct but mutually interrelated spheres of audience that require partly conflicting justification work. We also find that the narrow pursuit of justification work to ensure legitimacy with one audience may potentially jeopardize the justification work in the other two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we estimate the causal effects of a set of active labor market programs for male unemployed refugees on welfare who entered Germany between, 2013 and September, 2016. Using rich administrative data, we employ covariate balancing propensity scores combined with inverse probability weighting to estimate effects up to 33 months after the start of treatment. Our results show that relatively short-term training in the form of Schemes by Providers and In-Firm Training, as well as longer-term Further Vocational Training programs have a positive impact on both the employment chances as well as labor market earnings of refugees in the medium run. So-called "One Euro Jobs", a public employment program, does not yield positive effects on employment or earnings. Sensitivity analyses confirm that our results are unlikely to be driven by unobserved confounding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although reduced working time and furlough policy initiatives are widely regarded as important for economic and business reasons, little is known about their impacts on workers' mental health at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Panel Study data from 2018 to February 2020 and April 2020 and change score analysis, this study aims to compare mental health changes between those who worked reduced hours, were furloughed and left/lost paid work. The results suggest that at the onset of COVID-19 reduced working time and furlough can protect workers' mental health, but only for men not for women. The gender differences remain significant even after controlling for housework and childcare responsibilities at the onset of COVID-19. These results highlight the importance of distributing paid work more equitably and formulating gender-sensitive labour market policies in protection of workers' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to determine the impact of remittances and nonlabor income on the duration of unemployment, and therefore on the hysteresis phenomenon in Colombia for the period between January 2010 and January 2021. The long-term unemployment rate in Colombia (LAPU) is calculated, and a vector autoregressive (VAR) model is subsequently estimated to evaluate the impact of remittances and nonlabor income on the LAPU. The results suggest that the increase in nonlabor income significantly affected LAPU in Colombia in the period analyzed. The growth of remittances instead turned out to positively and significantly impact LAPU only during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. This suggests that remittances have become a fundamental income in times of crisis that allow for financing the search for work for a longer period of time, thus increasing the duration of unemployment and generating a hysteresis effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-making capacity (DMC) among psychiatric inpatients is a pivotal clinical concern. A review by Okai et al. (2007) suggested that most psychiatric inpatients have DMC for treatment, and its assessment is reliable. Nevertheless, the high heterogeneity and mixed results from other studies mean there is considerable uncertainty around this topic. This study aimed to update Okai's research by conducting a systematic review with meta-analysis to address heterogeneity. We performed a systematic search across four databases, yielding 5351 results. We extracted data from 20 eligible studies on adult psychiatric inpatients, covering DMC assessments from 2006 to May 2022. A meta-analysis was conducted on 11 papers, and a quality assessment was performed. The study protocol was registered on PROSPERO (ID: CRD42022330074). The proportion of patients with DMC for treatment varied widely based on treatment setting, the specific decision and assessment methods. Reliable capacity assessment was feasible. The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Global Assessment of Function (GAF), and Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) predicted clinical judgments of capacity. Schizophrenia and bipolar mania were linked to the highest incapacity rates, while depression and anxiety symptoms were associated with better capacity and insight. Unemployment was the only sociodemographic factor correlated with incapacity. Assessing mental capacity is replicable, with most psychiatric inpatients able to make treatment decisions. However, this capacity varies with admission stage, formal status (involuntary or voluntary), and information provided. The severity of psychopathology is linked to mental capacity, though detailed psychopathological data are limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article examines the phenomenon of homicide in Colombia and aims to understand the conditions of vulnerability that affect homicide in Colombian cities. Through a theoretical and methodological approach based on vulnerability, the relationship between homicidal violence and illegal markets, impoverished labor markets, and wealth distribution was analyzed. The sample consisted of the thirty-two departmental capital cities of Colombia. Multivariate statistical tools (PLS-SEM) were used to analyze the relationship between these factors and homicide. The findings suggest that low incomes, unemployment, inequality, and violence are associated with an increased risk of homicide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment subsidies are important active labour market policy (ALMP) tools, suited to a variety of labour market challenges. This paper engages with recent ALMP categorisation debates by appraising Cronert's (2019) recent typology of employment subsidies. It uses empirical material to assess the typology's explanatory power and produce insights to inform further typological development. The illustrative case of the British ' Wage Incentive' (2012-2014) is used to assess the typology's analytical purchase. Cronert's typology helpfully identifies key distinctions in the distributional profiles of employment subsidies, but further understanding of the category is impeded by the practice of defining them as demand-side interventions. The paper argues for a reappraisal of their supply-side characteristics, maintaining that the (potential) worker should be included in the analysis, and that employment subsidies' relationship with training and job creation should be acknowledged. It proposes a redefinition of employment subsidies reflecting their real-world use, and suggests a framework for further exploring varieties of employment subsidy design from the perspective of beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare states allocate and redistribute resources across different groups. For the social legitimacy of welfare states, public support of redistributive processes and outcomes is crucial. An important aspect in this context is the deservingness or non-deservingness of benefit recipients from the perspective of those who both financially contribute to the system and potentially benefit from it. We invited a random sample of the German labour force to participate in an online-survey. Using a factorial survey experiment, we described fictitious unemployed persons with different attributes and asked survey participants on the just maximum benefit duration for each particular case. Judgements regarding just benefit durations vary along the criteria of reciprocity, control, attitude and need: Respondents grant longer unemployment benefits to older jobseekers, as well as to jobseekers who became involuntarily unemployed, had stable employment careers, have to care for the elderly or are sole earners in the household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Active labour market policy (ALMP) reforms have fundamentally changed welfare states over the last decades. Their objectives are quite diverse: workfare reforms have increased conditionality and sanctioning of benefits, while enabling reforms have extended education and training opportunities for the unemployed. Little is known about the political discourse on ALMP reforms. We investigate how the individual unemployed person is portrayed in ALMP reforms via a comparative coding analysis of parliamentary debates on labour market reforms that took place in Germany in 2003 (workfare) and in 2016 (enabling). Our results indicate that compared to enabling reforms the individual unemployed is less important in the framing of workfare reforms but more often blamed. Party characteristics matter: parties on the left more often point to the deservingness of the unemployed. However, when the social democratic party in government introduced a workfare reform they used blaming of unemployed persons as a framing strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As recent immigration flows are reshaping the host countries workforce composition, this paper aims to assess whether age composition and skill adjustment dynamics play a relevant role in the welfare impact of immigration. To this end, we build and simulate a search and matching model that allows for endogenous natives' skill acquisition and intergenerational transfers to analyze the welfare effects of immigration on a selected group of 19 OECD countries. The obtained results are then compared with those obtained under different assumptions on age composition and skill adjustment dynamics. Our comparative statics analysis shows that stronger job creation effects take place when natives adjust their skill in response to immigration. Moreover, taking into account age composition plays a key role in assessing the fiscal impact of immigration, which turns out to be positive when we include intergenerational transfers to retirees and immigration is high-skilled. Finally, we find that our model yields more optimistic welfare effects than standard search models that abstract from skill decision and intergenerational redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of employment protection legislation has been thoroughly analyzed in varied contexts. Most studies highlight the potential harm of the legislation on labor outcomes, although evidence remains inconclusive. However, the literature has focused primarily on ex post impacts, analyzing the regulation’s effect after implementation. This article departs from that analysis to focus on anticipated or ex ante effects of labor regulation. More specifically, we study the role of firms’ expectations in future stricter labor legislation related to employment and income in Peru’s formal and informal labor market. To account for expectations, we used the number of news items related to the approval of a proposed law—the General Labor Law—to increase labor rigidities in Lima’s most important business newspaper. Using the Peruvian labor survey, we find a negative but decreasing relationship between firms’ expectations of a future stricter labor market and employment and average income. We also collect evidence that bigger news items and ones closer to the front page have a negative relationship with formal employment and income.

The impact of employment protection legislation has been thoroughly analyzed in varied contexts. Most studies highlight the potential harm of the legislation on labor outcomes, although evidence remains inconclusive. However, the literature has focused primarily on ex post impacts, analyzing the regulation’s effect after implementation. This article departs from that analysis to focus on anticipated or ex ante effects of labor regulation. More specifically, we study the role of firms’ expectations in future stricter labor legislation related to employment and income in Peru’s formal and informal labor market. To account for expectations, we used the number of news items related to the approval of a proposed law—the General Labor Law—to increase labor rigidities in Lima’s most important business newspaper. Using the Peruvian labor survey, we find a negative but decreasing relationship between firms’ expectations of a future stricter labor market and employment and average income. We also collect evidence that bigger news items and ones closer to the front page have a negative relationship with formal employment and income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To address the issue of persistent unemployment, the UK Government implemented a conditional welfare scheme. Prompted by Mantouvalou's argument that the scheme forces people into exploitative work, this paper addresses the 'pressing' question of whether the scheme is compatible with the prohibition on 'forced or compulsory labour' under Article 4(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is argued that, whether the scheme imposes the menace of a penalty, is involuntary, seriously exploitative or a normal civic obligation, ultimately depends on different understandings of the demands of distributive justice. Given the politically contested nature of those demands, Article 4(2) is a poor weapon to use when challenging the UK's conditional welfare scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-pandemic, employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) covered 175 million workers and their dependents, the equivalent of 49% of the country's total population. ESI, a valuable tax preference to employer and employee alike, spurred worker job dependence on employers resulting in access to healthcare dependent upon continued employment. With the advent of the pandemic and the dramatic increase in unemployment, the number of uninsured increased by more than 2.7 million people. Then, unemployment proliferated further by an unprecedented exit from the workforce dubbed the "Great Resignation." Over 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs in a movement characterized as a general labor strike. The pandemic opened the floodgates to workers' concerns about COVID safety in the workplace, wage stagnation despite increases in the cost of living, enduring job dissatisfaction, and increased demand for a remote-working environment. Data shows that the unemployed shifted to the Affordable Care Act marketplace or to the public payer option, Medicaid, for coverage. This shift signals a change, post-pandemic, away from the destabilizing system of access to care based on employment and unwanted job dependence and provides a policy argument favoring the more stabilizing influence of public insurance options in the health insurance market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a network economy model to study the propagation of the COVID lockdown shock. Firms are related to each other through buyer–seller relations in the market for intermediate inputs. Firms choose production levels and input combinations using prices that emerge from local interactions. Nothing forbids trade at out-of-equilibrium prices. In such a setting, disequilibrium spills over from one market to another due to the interconnections between markets. These disequilibrium dynamics are capable of generating unemployment when workers released by contracting firms are not frictionlessly absorbed by expanding firms. We calibrate the model to the US economy using a data set with more than 200,000 buyer–seller relations between about 70,000 firms. Computational experiments on the calibrated economy suggest that the COVID lockdown generates a sizeable decline in GDP. The endogenously generated unemployment dynamics is a primary determinant of the cost of the lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The psychosis continuum implies that subclinical psychotic experiences (PEs) can be differentiated from clinically relevant expressions since they are not accompanied by a 'need for care'. Methods: Using data from Wave 2 of the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; N = 34 653), the current study examined variation in functioning, symptomology and aetiological risk across the psychosis phenotype [i.e. variation from (i) no PEs, 'No PEs' to (ii) non-distressing PEs, 'PE-Experienced Only' to (iii) distressing PEs, 'PE-Impaired' to (iv) clinically defined psychotic disorder, 'Diagnosed']. Results: A graded trend was present such that, compared to those with no PEs, the Diagnosed group had the poorest functioning, followed by the PE-Impaired then PE-Experienced Only groups. In relation to symptom expression, the PE-Impaired group were more likely than the PE-Experienced Only and the Diagnosed groups to endorse most PEs. Predictors of group membership tended to vary quantitatively rather than qualitatively. Trauma, current mental health diagnoses (anxiety and depression) and drug use variables differentiated between all levels of the continuum, with the exception of the extreme end (PE-Impaired v. Diagnosed). Only a few variables distinguished groups at the upper end of the continuum: female sex, older age, unemployment, parental mental health hospitalisation and lower likelihood of having experienced physical assault. Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of continuum-based interpretations of the psychosis phenotype and afford valuable opportunities to consider if and how impairment, symptom expression and risk change along the continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nigeria is home to a significant and growing "youth" population, over a third of it below 24 years of age. The demographic potential for productivity and growth this group represents occurs alongside large-scale unemployment among young people of working age. The "unemployment crisis" has deep historical roots and exists within a wider context of poor governance, insecurity, conflict, and poverty. Policy norms and practices to address youth unemployment in Nigeria largely centre on skill development and job creation, with complementary schemes selectively targeted to specific groups of vulnerable and poor individuals. Measures are typically ad hoc, detached from a coherent programme of sustainable reform. Pre-existing structural factors and capacity constraints also shape the effectiveness of these programmes. While a productivist focus within current policy is potentially empowering in giving young Nigerians "worker" status, it also detracts from attending to deep-rooted structural problems seen to affect young people in disproportionate ways. Securing meaningful choices and lives for Nigerian youth requires reframing youth unemployment beyond labour markets alone, and embedded in ideas of equality and collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has caused the marked, cross-national, and unprecedented trends in European electoral results in the 21st century? Scholarly explanations include social structure and challenger party entrepreneurship. We argue that these electoral changes more proximally result from public issue salience, which results from societal trends and mainly affects rather than is caused by party agenda setting. We use aggregate-level panel data across 28 European countries to show that the public issue salience of three issues—unemployment, immigration, and the environment—is associated with later variation in the results of the conservative, social democrat, liberal, radical right, radical left, and green party families in theoretically expected directions, while the party system issue agenda has weaker associations. Public issue salience, in turn, is rooted in societal trends (unemployment rates, immigration rates and temperature anomalies), and, in some cases, party agenda setting. We validate our mechanism at the individual-level across 28 European countries and using UK panel data. Our findings have implications for our understanding of the agency of parties, the permanency of recent electoral changes, and how voters reconcile their social and political worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Employment and income are important determinants of mental health (MH), but the extent that unemployment effects are mediated by reduced income is unclear. We estimated the total effect (TE) of unemployment on MH and the controlled direct effect (CDE) not acting via income. Methods: We included adults 25–64 years from nine waves of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (n = 45 497/ obs = 202 297). Unemployment was defined as not being in paid employment; common mental disorder (CMD) was defined as General Health Questionnaire-12 score ≥4. We conducted causal mediation analysis using double-robust marginal structural modelling, estimating odds ratios (OR) and absolute differences for effects of unemployment on CMD in the same year, before (TE) and after (CDE) blocking the income pathway. We calculated percentage mediation by income, with bootstrapped standard errors. Results: The TE of unemployment on CMD risk was OR 1.66 (95% CI 1.57–1.76), with 7.09% (6.21–7.97) absolute difference in prevalence; equivalent CDEs were OR 1.55 (1.46–1.66) and 6.08% (5.13–7.03). Income mediated 14.22% (8.04–20.40) of the TE. Percentage mediation was higher for job losses [15.10% (6.81–23.39)] than gains [8.77% (0.36–17.19)]; it was lowest for those 25–40 years [7.99% (−2.57 to 18.51)] and in poverty [2.63% (−2.22 to 7.49)]. Conclusions: A high proportion of the short-term effect of unemployment on MH is not explained by income, particularly for younger people and those in poverty. Population attributable fractions suggested 16.49% of CMD burden was due to unemployment, with 13.90% directly attributable to job loss rather than resultant income changes. Similar analytical approaches could explore how this differs across contexts, by other factors, and consider longer-term effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the historical policy pathways that have led to the constellation of policies that both reflect and shape the current gender order can reveal reasons for the persistence of gender inequality in paid work and unpaid family care. Bringing together existing research and policy critique with Carol Bacchi's framework of policy as 'gendering practices', this paper focuses on the role of policy as a process that constructs and upholds an unequal gender order. The discussion traces how UK social policies have since the establishment of the post-war welfare state articulated and positioned gendered possibilities for combining paid work and childrearing, shaping gendered and classed work-family life courses. The analysis illustrates that British social policy has not been consistently committed to a more equal gender regime but instead maintained a heteronormative family ideal and thus, despite various policy changes, the gendering of 'the worker' and 'the parent' as conceptualised in UK policy has persisted over the last several decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Germany, as in many other European countries, vast changes in the welfare regime – towards workfare – have taken place. As a central activating element of workfare, sanctions were introduced to take effect by temporarily increasing deprivation through benefit cuts. This paper provides first quantitative insights on the effect of first sanctions on deprivation and contributes to the recent debate on the (un)constitutionality of sanctions, which re-emerged after a verdict of the Federal Constitutional Court, criticizing the lack of knowledge about the effects of sanctions on those affected. We implement a difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach that addresses selection on observables and individual time constant unobserved differences. High data accuracy is ensured by combining the "Panel Labour Market and Social Security" (PASS) with administrative data from the Federal Employment Agency. The results illustrate a slightly higher yet statistically insignificant level of deprivation for first-sanctioned unemployment/basic income recipients compared to non-sanctioned recipients. The results hint in the direction that higher levels of deprivation are not what activates the sanctioned beneficiaries to reintegrate into the labour market. We discuss whether the results imply a significant deviation from the socio-cultural subsistence minimum of sanctioned recipients and a failure of the welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Benzodiazepines and related drugs (BZDRs) are widely used in the treatment of anxiety and sleep disorders, but cognitive adverse effects have been reported in long-term use, and these may increase the risk of labor market marginalization (LMM). The aim of this study was to investigate whether the risk of LMM is associated with new long-term BZDR use compared to short-term use. Methods This register-based nationwide cohort study from Finland included 37,703 incident BZDR users aged 18–60 years who initiated BZDR use in 2006. During the first year of use, BZDR users were categorized as long-term users (≥180 days) versus short-term users based on PRE2DUP method. The main outcome was LMM, defined as receipt of disability pension, long-term sickness absence (>90 days), or long-term unemployment (>180 days). The risk of outcomes was analyzed with Cox regression models, adjusted with sociodemographic background, somatic and psychiatric morbidity, other types of medication and previous sickness absence. Results During 5 years of follow-up, long-term use (34.4%, N = 12,962) was associated with 27% (adjusted Hazard Ratio, aHR 1.27, 95% CI 1.23–1.31) increased risk of LMM compared with short-term use. Long-term use was associated with 42% (aHR 1.42, 95% CI 1.34–1.50) increased risk of disability pension and 26% increased risk of both long-term unemployment and long-term sickness absence. Conclusions These results indicate that long-term use of BZDRs is associated with increased risk of dropping out from labor market. This may be partly explained by cognitive adverse effects of prolonged BZDR use, which should be taken into account when prescribing BZDRs.

We revisit the Friedman rule in a labor search model and extend Heer (2003), Cooley and Quadrini (2004), and Wang and Xie (2013) to one that allows for endogenous growth. We show that, even without a liquidity effect or a CIA constraint on firms' wage payment, our model offers a different channel for moderate money growth to increase welfare. Intuitively, in a one-sector endogenous growth economy, the technology is of constant returns with respect to capital. When the labor market is frictional, a moderate increase in money growth induces an expansion in vacancy and employment. Labor and capital are complements in production. With an increase in employment, when the technology is neoclassical, the decreasing return in capital leads to a lower marginal product of labor. However, in an endogenous growth framework wherein the technology exhibits socially constant returns in capital, the marginal product of labor is constant. Due to a constant marginal product of labor, modest inflation raises employment, enlarges economic growth, and increases welfare. Moreover, the optimal long-run inflation rate departs from the Friedman rule, even when the Hosios rule holds. Finally, we find that our model with sustainable growth fits the data better than that without sustainable growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a meta-evaluation of the literature on the impacts of active labour market policies for unemployed people over 50, extracting 82 impacts for analysis. The meta-evaluation includes only impact evaluations that examine both a group of beneficiaries and a control group of comparable non-beneficiaries. On average, we find that active policies have a slightly negative effect (−0.8 percentage points) on the probability of unemployed people over 50 finding a job and that this negative effect disappears 24 months after policy implementation. However, this effect is very different when disaggregated by policy type. Direct job creation policies have a clear negative effect (−3.9 percentage points), and training policies have a positive average effect, either in isolation (2.4 percentage points) or when combined with search assistance or counselling (1.7 percentage points). We also find slight differences by gender, with the effect of active policies being greater for women than for men. These results have important implications, given that the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have made active policies the cornerstone of their efforts to improve the re-employment of older people. Our results support training policies, either in isolation or in combination with search assistance and counselling. The greatest impacts are obtained after 12 months of policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper charts responses to urgent appeals by welfare charities through crowd funding websites in order to examine the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on public generosity and social cohesion in the UK. It uses a relatively new method in social policy research, data-harvesting. Online public giving to local charities for vulnerable people sky-rocketed during the crisis, despite the long-established stigmatic treatment of the able-bodied poor of working age, a decade of benefit cuts, the increased stringency of Universal Credit and the long-term downward trend in charity incomes. Welfare policy and the rhetoric that surrounds it is increasingly divisive, although most welfare spending addresses needs or risks that confront all of us. The Covid19 lockdown can be seen as a natural experiment in social inclusion. This paper shows how policy discourse that stresses common humanity in the face of a collective challenge, rather than social divisions, can help build social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Job search is a central element of activation policies, which aim to transform unemployed people into active jobseekers who are subject to checks. We examine a neglected aspect of activation: sanctions. To do so we analyse, through biographical interviews with formerly-unemployed people whose benefit payments have been stopped, what it means when a job search is deemed insufficient. Although these formerly-unemployed people have failed to present enough written and tangible evidence of their job search during checks, they have pursued a different type of job search comprising more informal activities that are difficult to convert into written documents. So, we identify a twin-stranded job search – prescribed and alternative. We also point out that the gap between institutionally-framed job search and experience-based job search widens among unemployed people having low employability attributes, so that ever-stricter checks penalize those who are most vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, such as drought and heat waves. In this paper, we assess the impact of drought and high temperatures on the employment outcomes of working-age individuals in South Africa between 2008 and 2017. We merge high-resolution weather data with detailed individual-level survey data on labor market outcomes, and estimate causal impacts using a fixed effects framework. We find that increases in the occurrence of drought reduce overall employment. These effects are concentrated in the tertiary sector, amongst informal workers, and in provinces with a higher reliance on tourism. Taken together, our results suggest that the impacts of climate change will be felt unequally by South Africa's workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicators are important sources of information about problems across many policy areas. However, despite a growing number of indicators across most policy areas, such as health care, business promotion, or environmental protection, we still know little about if, how, and when such indicators affect the policy agenda. This article develops a theoretical answer to these questions and examines the implications using a new large-n dataset with 220,000 parliamentary questions asked by government and opposition MPs in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The data contain information on political attention to 17 problems, such as unemployment, C02 emission, and crime from 1960 to 2015. Across this wealth of data, the article demonstrates that politicians respond to the severity and development of problem indicators over time and in comparison to other countries. Results also show that politicians respond much more when problem indicators develop negatively than when they develop positively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Job loss is common in multiple sclerosis (MS) and frequently associated with depression, fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction. Identifying these modifiable risk factors and providing "at-risk" women with a neuropsychologically-based intervention may improve employment outcomes. Our study seeks to investigate the utility of a neuropsychologically-based intervention with varying levels of treatment and follow-up, and evaluate treatment and employment outcomes among groups. Method: In this longitudinal, quasi-randomized controlled trial, employed women with MS meeting criteria on screening measures were considered "at-risk" for job instability and randomized to one of two neuropsychological testing interventions (standard-care group received testing and phone feedback of results and recommendations; experimental group received testing and in-person feedback with subsequent care-coordinator calls from a nurse to help coordinate recommendation completion). Participants who did not meet criteria were considered "low-risk" and only followed over time. Results: 56 women in the treatment groups (standard-care = 23; experimental = 33) and 63 women in the follow-only group were analyzed at 1 year. Rates of decreased employment were similar between standard-care (17.4%) and experimental (21.2%) groups (OR =.782, 95% CI.200–3.057). However, the experimental group completed significantly more treatment recommendations, t (53) = −3.237, p =.002. Rates of decreased employment were also similar between the "low-risk" (17.5%) and "at-risk" groups (19.6%), (OR =.721, 95% CI.285–1.826). Conclusion: Employment outcomes were similar at 1 year between treatment groups receiving differing levels of a neuropsychologically-based intervention, however treatment adherence significantly improved in the experimental group. Treatment groups also had similar employment outcomes as compared to a "low-risk," no intervention group, suggesting that engaging in either neuropsychological intervention may have impacted job stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Income drops permanently after an involuntary job displacement, but it has never been clear what happens to long run wealth in the USA. Upon displacement, wealth falls 14% relative to workers of the same age and similar education from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). Their wealth is still 18% lower 12 years after the event. A standard life cycle model calibrated to US data with permanent decreases in income after displacement behaves differently than these findings. The agents in the model also experience a large drop in wealth but they recover. The biggest culprit for these differences is small and statistically insignificant changes to consumption in the PSID whereas agents in the model decrease their consumption considerably. Extending the model to include habit formation reconciles some of these differences by generating similar long run effects on wealth. This allows for the examination of wealth at death through the lens of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The objective of this population-based register study was (1) to investigate the association between young adults diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and subsequent labour market marginalisation (LMM) in two comparison groups, i.e. matched young adults from the general population without ADHD and unaffected siblings to persons with ADHD and (2) to assess the role of comorbid disorders. Methods: This study included all young adults in Sweden, aged 19–29 years, with an incident diagnosis of ADHD 2006–2011 (n = 9718). Crude and multivariate sex-stratified hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were measured 5 years after the diagnosis of ADHD for the risk of disability pension, long-term sickness absence (SA) (>90 days), long-term unemployment (>180 days) and a combined measure of all three in young adults with ADHD compared to their siblings without ADHD and a matched comparison group. Results: In the adjusted analyses young adults with ADHD had a 10-fold higher risk of disability pension (HR = 10.2; CI 9.3–11.2), a nearly three-fold higher risk of long-term SA (HR = 2.7; CI 2.5–2.8) and a 70% higher risk of long-term unemployment (HR = 1.7; CI 1.6–1.8) compared to the matched comparison group. The risk estimates were lower compared to siblings for disability pension (HR = 9.0; CI 6.6–12.3) and long-term SA (HR = 2.5; CI 2.1–3.1) but higher in the long-term unemployed (HR = 1.9; CI 1.6–2.1). Comorbid disorders explained about one-third of the association between ADHD and disability pension, but less regarding SA and long-term unemployment. Conclusions: Young adults with ADHD have a high risk for different measures of LMM and comorbidities explain only a small proportion of this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the ways in which educated yet unemployed young people attempt to configure ways of being productive in a small hill town in North India. Young people who do not migrate to large urban centres from this township are the subject of contradictory discourses: in some moments they are seen as an antidote to the 'problem of migration', but in other moments they are ridiculed for not making good use of their time. Both discourses suggest a present wherein young people are not productive. Drawing on ethnographic material gathered over a ten-month period, this article frames youth sociality as a mode registering a sense of productivity and navigating unemployment. I argue that while hanging out at a computer shop, young men were distancing themselves from notions of idling and creating masculine youth cultures in which they sought to situate themselves as productive young people. I make this argument by unpacking exchanges between these young men and by analysing the tangible ways they helped the shop function. I also draw debates about youth sociality into dialogue with theoretical insights from rural geography to illuminate how educated youth attempt to imbue rural and peri-urban space with new possibilities. I show how educated youth attempt to reanimate rural space and forge affirmative rural futures by emphasizing their connections with Indian modernity. Attending to the ways in which educated yet unemployed youth attempt to situate themselves within productive relations is set to become of increasing importance given the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When studying the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC's) interest rate rule, some authors, such as Gonzalez-Astudillo [(2018) Journal of Monetary, Credit, and Banking 50(1), 115–154.], find evidence for changes in inflation and output gap responses. Others, such as Sims and Zha [(2006) American Economic Review 96(1), 54–81.], only find evidence for a change in the variance of the interest rate rule. In this paper, I develop a new two-regime Markov-switching model that probabilistically performs variable selection and identification of parameter change for each variable in the model. I find substantial evidence that there have been changes in the FOMC's response to the unemployment gap and in the volatility of the rule. When the FOMC responds strongly to the unemployment gap, I find a bimodal density for the inflation response coefficient. Despite the bimodal density, there is a low probability that there have been changes in the FOMC's response to inflation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the covid-induced lockdowns, many commented on the role the German model of Kurzarbeit could play in reducing unemployment. Other countries emulated the model. Looking at the experiences of Germany, the UK, Sweden and the USA, the article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of short-time working (STW) schemes. It asks whether STW has been well designed to have optimal short and longer run impact. It is quite effective as a short-term palliative, but in longer downturns, its weaknesses come to the fore. It is by no means clear that the UK needs a permanent replacement for the furlough. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public health measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic have disrupted welfare regimes around the world. The Australian government suspended activation requirements for millions of social security clients and substantially increased payment levels. Both measures go against the dominant policy logic over the past several decades in Australian social policy. When these changes were made, many advocates and academics called for a permanent increase in the rate of payment and a relaxation of activations requirements. The Australian Government insisted the stimulus package was temporary and that there would be a gradual return to the pre-pandemic policy settings. In this article, we examine what was learned during this natural experiment of unconditional higher payments, which temporarily lifted millions of households out of poverty. We argue that a return to pre-pandemic policy settings should not go unchecked as there remains an opportunity to consider alternative approaches to the welfare-work nexus in Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to search and matching theory, a greater availability of unemployed workers should make it easier for a firm to fill a vacancy, but more vacancies at other firms should make recruitment more difficult. Simulating a theoretical model of a firm facing perfect competition in the product market and no convex adjustment costs (standard assumptions in the search and matching literature), I find that shocks to vacancies and unemployment lead to economically significant employment responses. Simulating a more realistic model with imperfect competition in the product market and convex adjustment costs, I find small employment effects of shocks to vacancies and unemployment. In particular, shocks to the number of unemployed seem to be unimportant. Estimating an employment equation on a panel of Swedish firms, I find that neither the number of unemployed workers nor the number of vacancies in the local labor market is important for firms' employment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical profiling of job seekers is an attractive option to guide the activities of public employment services. Many hope that algorithms will improve both efficiency and effectiveness of employment services’ activities that are so far often based on human judgment. Against this backdrop, we evaluate regression and machine-learning models for predicting job-seekers’ risk of becoming long-term unemployed using German administrative labor market data. While our models achieve competitive predictive performance, we show that training an accurate prediction model is just one element in a series of design and modeling decisions, each having notable effects that span beyond predictive accuracy. We observe considerable variation in the cases flagged as high risk across models, highlighting the need for systematic evaluation and transparency of the full prediction pipeline if statistical profiling techniques are to be implemented by employment agencies.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and subsequent lockdown may have affected the mental health of the population. This study examines whether there was an increase in the prevalence and incidence of common mental disorders (CMD) in the UK adult population during the first months of lockdown and whether changes in CMD were associated with stressors related to the pandemic and lockdown. Methods: Longitudinal data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study waves 10–11: 2019–2020 and waves 1–4 of the COVID-19 monthly surveys in April (n = 17 761) to July 2020 (n = 13 754), a representative sample of UK adult population, were analysed. CMD was measured using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) (cut-off >2). Changes in CMD were analysed in relation to COVID-19 and social stressors. Results: Around 29% of adults without CMD less than a year earlier had a CMD in April 2020. However, by July 2020, monthly incidence of CMD had reduced to 9%. Most employment, financial and psychological 'shocks' were at their highest levels in April and reduced steadily in later months. Despite the lifting of some lockdown conditions by July, stressors related to loneliness, unemployment, financial problems and domestic work continued to influence CMD. Conclusion: Some COVID-19 policy responses such as furloughing may have been effective in mitigating the increase in CMD for some groups of employees. Despite some reduction in levels of pandemic and lockdown-related stressors by the middle of 2020, loneliness and financial stressors remained key determinants of incidence in CMD among the UK adult population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on studies assessing engineering bottlenecks of automation. Topics include t digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) displacing a considerable number of work tasks in the coming decades; and implications of divergent employment scenarios for government budgets, poverty or economic inequality.

Policymakers in liberal welfare states like the UK have prioritised extending the reach of compulsory activation to target vulnerable jobseeker groups, such as lone parents. However, such interventions – especially when combined with intensified welfare conditionality – appear to have had limited positive effects on lone parents' employability, while often negatively impacting wellbeing. This article argues that the problem is a disconnect between the complex barriers to employability faced by lone parents (including their need to balance work and caring) and the content of 'work-first' activation favoured by successive UK Governments. We report positive findings from in-depth interviews with lone parents and key stakeholders involved in more person-centred, non-compulsory local employability services. Multi-agency service delivery, collaborative governance and a clear role for user voice in programme design were important facilitators of positive experiences. Our analysis points to the need for services that empower lone parents to make choices to progress towards employment while supporting family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate about extending working lives in response to population ageing often overlooks the lack of employment opportunity for older adults with disabilities. Without work, their living standards depend heavily on government transfers. This study contributes to the literature on health inequalities by analysing the sources of income and poverty outcomes for people aged 50 to 64 in two liberal democratic countries yet with contrasting disability benefit contexts – Canada and the United Kingdom. This choice of countries offers the opportunity to assess whether the design of benefit systems has led the most disadvantaged groups to fare differently between countries. Overall, disabled older persons without work faced a markedly higher risk of poverty in Canada than in the UK. Public transfers played a much greater role in the UK, accounting for two-thirds of household income among low-educated groups, compared with one-third in Canada. The average benefit amount received was similar in both countries, but the coverage of disabled people was much lower in Canada than in the UK, leading to a high poverty risk among disabled people out of work. Our findings highlight the importance of income support systems in preventing the widening of the poverty-disability gap at older ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's so-called Lost Decade of the 1990s presents a unique case study of an economy with a recent severe and prolonged recession, with large changes in the labor market and fiscal policy as the main policy available to the government. Japanese unemployment rate surged from 2.1% in 1991 to 5.4% in 2002. Meanwhile, the Japanese economy experienced a rise in government expenditures, while taxes remained fairly stable. This paper quantitatively evaluates the impact of these changes in fiscal policies on labor market variables, in particular the unemployment rate, during the 1990s. We build, calibrate, and simulate a dynamic general equilibrium model with search frictions in the labor market, a productive government sector, heterogenous government spendings, and different categories of taxes. Our model is able to reproduce the paths of the main labor market variables, and the counterfactual experiments show that the changes that took place in the different spending components affected the unemployment rate heterogeneously, although overall they kept unemployment lower than it could have been. We also find that had the government also implemented countercyclical tax policies, unemployment would not have risen as much as it did by 2002. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) plays a significant socio-economic role in the alleviation of poverty. In Ghana, the increase in and persistence of illegal ASM (galamsey) can be explained by unemployment, cumbersome and costly registration, lack of land, corruption and Chinese engagement. Traditionally, Ghanaian governments have neglected to address ASM activities by means of policy, while publicly emphasizing its negative impacts. In 2017, the media campaign #StopGalamsey became a culmination of this process. This study represents a qualitative content analysis of #StopGalamsey media discourses. It aims to understand how galamsey was framed in the media during the first two years of the campaign. Based on an analysis of 176 articles from the Daily Graphic newspaper, four dominant frames were identified – environmental menace , criminal activity , complex menace and corruption and collusion. Galamsey was portrayed in an overwhelmingly negative way, miners were dehumanised and criminalised, conflicting perspectives marginalised, and non-traditional perception emphasised via Chinese engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unemployment insurance schemes typically include eligibility conditions comprising the employment history prior to becoming unemployed, an aspect largely neglected in the literature. We develop an analytically tractable matching model including such contingencies. Unemployed determine reservation durations for jobs to be acceptable, and stronger employment histories increase reservation durations. This creates a stratification among unemployed; unemployed with short employment histories accept short-term jobs, while those with a strong employment history aims for jobs with a longer duration. A trade-off arises between the employment level and the matching quality in terms of job duration; a stronger reward to employment histories reduces employment, but improves match quality (more long-term jobs). Numerical simulations show that the distribution between short- and long-term jobs is significantly affected by history dependencies in benefits levels and duration. The optimal utilitarian policy is shown to include contingencies based on employment histories of the unemployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how poverty reduction and natural resource preservation can be simultaneously achieved in a small open dual economy with urban wage rigidity, open access rural resources, and rural-urban migration. An increase in the export tax rate on the rural resource good increases urban unemployment in both the short run and the long run with resource dynamics. Given the institutional failures, the first-best policy is an urban wage subsidy combined with either a rural wage subsidy at a lower rate or, if the urban output price is sufficiently high, a rural tax. When the institutional failures can be resolved endogenously, an increase in the export tax on the resource good can induce rural institutional change away from open access. However, tariff protection of urban manufacturing hinders such a rural institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, the use of conditionality backed by benefit sanctions for those claiming unemployment and related benefits has become widespread in the social security systems of high-income countries. Critics argue that sanctions may be ineffective in bringing people back to employment or indeed harmful in a range of ways. Existing reviews largely assess the labour market impacts of sanctions but our understanding of the wider impacts is more limited. We report results from a scoping review of the international quantitative research evidence on both labour market and wider impacts of benefit sanctions. Following systematic search and screening, we extract data for 94 studies reporting on 253 outcome measures. We provide a narrative summary, paying attention to the ability of the studies to support causal inference. Despite variation in the evidence base and study designs, we found that labour market studies, covering two thirds of our sample, consistently reported positive impacts for employment but negative impacts for job quality and stability in the longer term, along with increased transitions to non-employment or economic inactivity. Although largely relying on non-experimental designs, wider-outcome studies reported significant associations with increased material hardship and health problems. There was also some evidence that sanctions were associated with increased child maltreatment and poorer child well-being. Lastly, the review highlights the generally poor quality of the evidence base in this area, with few studies employing research methods designed to identify the causal impact of sanctions, especially in relation to wider impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If political circumstances are an important cause of unemployment in the Middle East, does this tend to attenuate the influence of economic infrastructure? I approach this question by building a geospatial dataset of the West Bank, an area with high unemployment arguably linked to political problems. I find Israeli army road obstacles, deployed during the Second Intifada, obstructed peri-urban Palestinian commuters from accessing commercial centers and border crossings, inflicting employment losses that were substantially offset by employment gains among their more centrally located Palestinian competitors. The findings suggest that marginal economic interventions, such as removing obstacles or paving roads, have a good chance of altering the spatial distribution of unemployment, but may struggle to reduce overall unemployment levels absent political reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of artificial intelligence (AI) does influence human jobs but not necessarily in a negative way. Although labor force participation rates and firms' job vacancies for human labor decline, the unemployment rate may be lower than that in an economy without AI. In an economy with heterogeneously skilled workers, the invention of AI usually has a negative effect on the skilled labor market but a positive effect on the unskilled labor market. The overall unemployment rate may decline as AI develops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]