The effect of unemployment on social participation of spouses: evidence from plant closures in Germany

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research at DIW BerlinThis series presents research findings based either directly on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel study (SOEP) or using SOEP data as part of an internationally comparable data set (e.g. CNEF, ECHP, LIS, LWS, CHER/PACO). SOEP is a truly multidisciplinary household panel study covering a wide range of social and behavioral sciences: economics, sociology, psychology, survey methodology, econometrics and applied statistics, educational science, political science, public health, behavioral genetics, demography, geography, and sport science.The decision to publish a submission in SOEPpapers is made by a board of editors chosen by the DIW Berlin to represent the wide range of disciplines covered by SOEP. There is no external referee process and papers are either accepted or rejected without revision. Papers appear in this series as works in progress and may also appear elsewhere. They often represent preliminary studies and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be requested from the author directly.Any opinions expressed in this series are those of the author(s) and not those of DIW Berlin.Research disseminated by DIW Berlin may include views on public policy issues, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. This paper estimates the effect of an individual's unemployment on the level of social participation of their spouse. Using German panel data, it is shown that unemployment has a strong negative effect on public social activities of both directly and indirectly affected spouses. Private social activities of either spouse, however, are only found to increase, if the indirectly affected spouse is not working. Conflict prevention strategies or habituation may help to rationalise this finding. Our results imply that active labour market policies should account for spillovers effects within couples and adopt a family perspective.

The perceived well-being and health costs of exiting self-employment

“…5 Our methodology includes two steps: (i) a data pre-processing using entropy balancing to create comparable groups of individuals who are statistically identical except that the treated group experiences a change in their labor market status between two survey waves while the comparison group does not; and (ii) estimating a weighted regression of the treatment (change in labor market status) on the change in perceived life and health satisfaction status based on weights obtained in step 1. This empirical strategy allows us to eliminate selection based on the observables 5 Examples of other recent studies following this strategy include Chadi and Hetschko (2018), de Bruin et al (2011), Kunze and Suppa (2020), Marcus (2013), and Nikolova (2019).…”

The effect of unemployment on the smoking behavior of couples

“…However, surprisingly little is known about how spouses are affected by unemployment. Some evidence suggests that spousal life satisfaction decreases (Luhmann et al, ; Winkelmann & Winkelmann, ), divorce rates increase (Charles & Stephens, ), spousal labor force participation rates increase (Stephens, ), and spousal social activities decrease (Kunze & Suppa, ). Further, spousal mental health decreases (Bubonya et al, ; Clark, ; Marcus, ; Mendolia, ).…”

The Perceived Well-Being and Health Costs of Exiting Self-Employment

“…5 Our methodology includes two steps: (i) a data pre-processing using entropy balancing to create comparable groups of individuals who are statistically identical except that the treated group experiences a change in their labor market status between two survey waves while the comparison group does not; and (ii) estimating a weighted regression of the treatment (change in labor market status) on the change in perceived life and health satisfaction status based on weights obtained in step 1. This empirical strategy allows us to eliminate selection based on the observables 5 Examples of other recent studies following this strategy include Chadi andHetschko (2018), de Bruin et al (2011), Kunze and Suppa (2020), Marcus (2013), andNikolova (2019).…”