good research questions about unemployment

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140 Unemployment Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on unemployment, 🔎 easy unemployment research paper topics, 👍 good unemployment essay topics to write about, 🎓 most interesting unemployment research titles, 💡 simple unemployment essay ideas, ❓ unemployment research questions.

• Causes of Youth Unemployment
• Artificial Intelligence and Unemployment
• The Impact of Unemployment on Crime Rates
• Economics: Unemployment, Its Causes and Types
• The Problem of the Unemployment
• Unemployment Rates Among Young College Graduates
• The Relationship Between Unemployment and Economic Growth
• Building a Business to Address Youth Unemployment An opportunity to build a business based on the youth unemployment problem has both strengths and weaknesses, also opportunities for further development.
• Natural Rate of Unemployment In determining the natural rate of unemployment, analysts focus on evaluating price and wage settings in the labour market.
• Unemployment, Its Types and Government Intervention Unemployment is among the most significant challenges that influence contemporary economies. Indeed, even global economic giants suffer from the problem.
• Unemployment and Political Regime Unemployment should be considered one of the critical factors influencing the economy of states and political stability. This paper discusses unemployment and political regime.
• Unemployment Rate During COVID-19 COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown measures significantly affected the civilian labor force participation and unemployment rates.
• Social Problems and Policy: Youth Unemployment and Mental Health In the history of the US, the federal and state governments have been at the forefront to facilitate effective social programs.
• Unemployment Rate in Leisure and Hospitality Sector For leisure and hospitality businesses, low unemployment rates tend to be related to a higher average salary, owing to the lower labor supply.
• The Impact of Government Spending on GDP Growth, Unemployment, and Inflation Real GDP Refers to every financial activity done by the government, including consumption, investment, and transfer payment.
• Unemployment as an Imperfect Economic Measure Unemployment has been an essential aspect of the country’s economy because the unemployed labor force cannot pay taxes or perform other activities beneficial to the economy.
• Domestic Violence in Melbourne: Impact of Unemployment Due to Pandemic Restrictions The purpose of this paper is to analyze to what extent does unemployment due to pandemic restrictions impact domestic violence against women in Melbourne.
• Unemployment and Its Macroeconomic Implications In the process of learning about macroeconomic trends, one obtains an opportunity to expand their knowledge about particular factors and their outcomes for the economy.
• Counter-Terrorism and Unemployment Approaches A more novel approach to unemployment that considers the needs of a disenchanted youth is vital to reducing the draw towards terrorist activities.
• The Long-Term Unemployment Positive Tendency The article argues that the level of long-term unemployment has fallen significantly compared to the previous years, reaching the lowest point in 9 years.
• The Unemployment and Inflation Causes in Australia The change in the Australian 2021 indicator of unemployment is the representation of cyclical unemployment since it lasted less than a year.
• Why the Unemployment Rate Needs Fixing in the US The article Latest Jobs Report Shows Why the Unemployment Rate Needs Fixing regards the issue of the inadequateness of the currently established formal indicator in the US.
• Unemployment After the US Industrial Revolution Since the commencement of the industrial revolution, the process of automation, or more broadly the replacement of human employees by machines, has piqued widespread interest.
• The Hispanic Unemployment Issue in the US A Hispanic person in the US is more likely to be unemployed than an average American. People of color have historically been one of the most discriminated groups.
• The US Fiscal Policy and Unemployment Rate The problem to be discussed will be centered around the relationship between fiscal policies in regard to the unemployment rate in the United States.
• Unemployment Rates in the State of Georgia In this essay, the author will present the current unemployment statistics and job outlook in the state of Georgia.
• The High Unemployment Rate as a Most Serious Threat to Americans Although the United States has one of the highest economic indicators globally, thousands of Americans are unemployed across the country.
• AI Development, Unemployment, and Universal Basic Income The theme of AI-human relationships takes an important place in science fiction literature, movies, and video games, but it is not limited by them.
• Unemployment Rates in the United States due to COVID-19 The increase in unemployment in the United States is associated with the country’s epidemiological situation and the tightening of quarantine measures taken by states.
• Homelessness Due to Unemployment During COVID-19 This paper is a research on how unemployment resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic has left many homeless in the United States.
• An Article Review: “Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment” The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics published a short article that reports the results of the analysis of the changes in the “nonfarm payroll employment” in metropolitan areas.
• The Effects of the Minimum Wage on Overall Unemployment The raised minimum wage would create more jobs for low-wage workers, as this rise would prompt the goods and services demand of such workers who would now be able to afford more.
• Unemployment Rates in the United States Unemployment is unevenly distributed across the US population, with regards to race, age, gender, and education.
• Inflation and Unemployment in Bavaria Considering the normal state of the economy and the existing level of employment close to full, the President of Bavaria is not recommended to pursue an expansionary fiscal policy.
• Federal Poverty, Welfare, and Unemployment Policies In the paper, the federal policies regarding the above mentioned areas of public interest will be scrutinized and discussed at length.
• Unemployment: Types And Factors Unemployment is one of the greatest social evils in our society today. This is because of the unfriendly impacts it has on the economy.
• Unemployment and Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale The concept of self-esteem is derived from self–theory. A basic assumption of self-theory is the need to appreciate oneself and be appreciated by others.
• “Unemployment Checks: Keep ‘Em Coming” by Owens and Stettner: Article Review In the article, Owens and Stettner underline that current unemployment affects both the economy and employers, the government financial resources, and the jobless population.
• Youth Unemployment in the United Kingdom Over the years, there have been remarkable unemployment rates among the youths all across the globe as compared to the age brackets that are regarded as adults.
• Economics for Management. Unemployment in Spain Spain has the potential to reduce the unemployment rate, especially since it has already decreased significantly from 2016.
• Unemployment Rates in the US The state of the American economy is getting closer to full employment, whereas the unemployment rates (as of 2017) remain to be approximately 4.4%.
• “Unemployment and Terrorism” TED Talk by Mohamed Ali In this TED talk, Mohamed Ali explores the relationship between unemployment and terrorism. Ali incorporates stories from his native country to support his arguments.
• Frictional Unemployment and Hyperinflation Frictional unemployment is also known as voluntary unemployment. It cannot be eliminated from the economy. There are some economic benefits associated with it.
• Youth Unemployment Rates in Canadian Society The problem under investigation is the fact that the unemployment rate among people in the 18-25 age group is higher than any other age group in Canadian society.
• Social and Economic Aspects of Unemployment in the UAE Despite the UAE having the lowest level of unemployment in the world, the number of foreign workers exceeds its native employees.
• 2008 Great Recession, Unemployment and Stagnation This paper is looking into the case of the financial crisis, which results in an economic recession and the further sustained effects.
• Unemployment’ Nature and Possible Causes Unemployment rate refers to the percentage of people within the available labour force who do have jobs and are actively looking for one. Unemployment rates cannot be reduced to zero.
• Unemployment and the Labour Market in Australia The paper studies forces of supply and demand in the Australian labor market, the labor force participation rate and the trends in labour force participation of older workers.
• Reduced Unemployment in the UK In order to understand why there has been a decline in unemployment rate in the UK, it is essential to understand the reasons affecting UK unemployment.
• Earnings-Related Unemployment Security, Employment and Lifetime Income
• Employment, Unemployment and Real Economic Growth
• Business Cycles and Compositional Variation in US Unemployment
• Crime, Earnings Inequality, and Unemployment in England and Wales
• European Unemployment: Cause and Cure
• Demographic and Education Effects on Unemployment in Europe: Economic Factors and Labour Market Institutions
• Centralized Wage Bargaining and Regional Unemployment
• Capital Shortages and Asymmetries in UK Unemployment
• Disarmament, Unemployment, Budgets, and Inflation
• Demography, Capital Flows, and Unemployment
• Duty-Free Zone, Unemployment, and Welfare a Note
• Factors Affecting the Adjustments to Unemployment
• Capital, Wages, and Structural Unemployment
• Earnings, Unemployment, and Housing in Britain
• Canada’s Interwar Unemployment From 1919 Until 1939
• Aging and the Labor Market: Age Structure, Cohort Size, and Unemployment
• Community Unemployment and Immigrants’ Health in Montreal
• Employment, Unemployment, and Underemployment in Africa
• Correlation Between Crime and Unemployment
• Equilibrium Labor Turnover, Firm Growth and Unemployment
• Changing Identity: Retiring From Unemployment
• Equilibrium Unemployment and Retirement
• Employment Turnover and Unemployment Insurance
• Embodied Technical Change and the Fluctuations of Wages and Unemployment
• Eligibility for Unemployment Benefits in Great Britain
• Capital Immobility, Informal Sector, and Urban Unemployment
• Age Structure and the UK Unemployment Rate
• Economics Instability Increases the Unemployment Rate in Malaysia
• Australian Unemployment, Inflation, and Economic Growth
• Broadband Infrastructure and Unemployment – Evidence for Germany
• Economic Recession, Skilled Unemployment, and Welfare
• Construction Industry Growth Economic Unemployment
• Agglomeration, Job Flows, and Unemployment
• Entrepreneurship, Asymmetric Information, and Unemployment
• Economic Freedom and Unemployment in Emerging Market Economies
• Absenteeism, Unemployment and Employment Protection Legislation: Evidence From Italy
• Environmental Policy, Efficient Taxation, and Unemployment
• Dynamic Contracts and Equilibrium Unemployment
• Agro-Manufactured Export Prices, Wages and Unemployment
• Banking Crises, Labor Reforms, and Unemployment
• Environmental Policy, Pollution, Unemployment, and Endogenous Growth
• Demographic Evolutions and Unemployment: An Analysis of French Labour Market With Workers Generations
• Employment and Unemployment Insurance Schemes
• Disability, Unemployment, and Poverty
• Business Volatility, Job Destruction, and Unemployment
• Aggregate Demand, Productivity, and Disguised Unemployment in the Chinese Industrial Sector
• Child Support and Involuntary Unemployment
• Efficiency-Wage Unemployment and Endogenous Growth
• Addressing Education, Inequality, and Unemployment in Uganda
• Economic Freedom and Unemployment Around the World
• Dual Labor Markets, Urban Unemployment, and Multicentric Cities
• Employment, Unemployment, and Problem Drinking
• Correlations Between Recessions and Unemployment
• Employment and Unemployment Effects of Unions
• Collective Bargaining, Firm Heterogeneity and Unemployment
• Equilibrium Unemployment During Financial Crises
• Capital, Heterogeneous Labour, Global Goods Markets and Unemployment
• Economic Policy, Industrial Structure, and Unemployment in Russia’s Regions
• Capital Stock, Unemployment and Wages in the UK and Germany
• Environmental Fiscal Reform and Unemployment in Spain
• Why Did Unemployment Persist Despite the New Deal?
• Can More FDI Solve the Problem of Unemployment in the EU?
• What Is the Current Rate of Unemployment in the UK 2022?
• Who Can Get Unemployment Benefits in Germany?
• What Are Relationships Between Short-Term Unemployment and Inflation?
• Does Broadband Internet Reduce the Unemployment Rate?
• Are Education Systems Modern as Well as Practical Enough to Eliminate Unemployment, and Thus Poverty?
• What Us State Has the Lowest Unemployment Rate?
• Does High Unemployment Rate Result in a High Divorce Rate?
• Does Culture Affect Unemployment?
• Why Unemployment Is a Problem?
• What Is the Unemployment Rate in Canada?
• Are Early Educational Choices Affected by Unemployment Benefits?
• How Long Does Unemployment Take To Get Approved?
• Which Country Has the Lowest Unemployment Rate?
• What’s the Lowest You Can Get From Unemployment?
• Why Is the Us Unemployment Rate So Low?
• How Does Unemployment Rate Affect Everyone?
• Are Interest Rates Responsible for Unemployment in the Eighties?
• Does Employment Protection Lead To Unemployment?
• Are Searching and Non-searching Unemployment Distinct States When Unemployment Is High?
• What Are the Solutions to Unemployment?
• Can Google Econometrics Predict Unemployment?
• How Far Was Unemployment the Most Important Reason for the Rise of the Nazis in Germany Between 1918 and 1933?
• Are Protective Labor Market Institutions at the Root of Unemployment?
• What Is China’s Unemployment Rate?
• What Are the Five Causes of Unemployment?
• What Are the Main Causes of Unemployment in an Economy?
• What City Has the Lowest Unemployment Rate?
• Can Insider-Outsider Theories Explain the Persistence of Unemployment?

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These essay examples and topics on Unemployment were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on June 25, 2024 .

205 Unemployment Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best unemployment topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on unemployment, 📌 simple & easy unemployment essay titles, 💡 interesting topics to write about unemployment, ✍️ unemployment essay topics for college, ❓ essay questions on unemployment.

• Unemployment Leads to Crime Essay In the 1990s, the rate of unemployment was low and so was the rate of property crime. Crime rates increase steadily in society, and the rate of crime is connected to unemployment and low wages.
• Youth Unemployment as a Social Issue Different factors have led to the high levels of youth unemployment, with the most widely studied of them being the skills that are available to the unemployed youths.
• Youth Unemployment and Policy Solutions The inability to address the problem of unemployment in the given age group may result in the growth of criminal activity, child poverty, and people’s negative perceptions of life.
• Unemployment and Lack of Economic Opportunity Having the majority of the population employed is critical for the economic and social stability of a nation. The third reason why employment and economic opportunities must be facilitated together is that it impacts the […]
• Unemployment Rate Due to Impact of Technology By understanding the role of technology on unemployment, the public can develop innovative mechanisms to overcome the issue. The impact of technology on the labor market is relevant to my present and future life.
• The Philippines’ Unemployment, Inequality, Poverty However, despite the strong emphasis of the government on income equality and poverty reduction along with the growth of GDP, both poverty and economic and social inequality remain persistent in the Philippines.
• Unemployment The following are some of the advantages of using the hard system method It provides a deeper understanding and analysis of the problem of unemployment and answers the question of how to mitigate the unemployment […]
• Unemployment: Causes and Effects Employers seek to recoup the costs of inflation by constantly increasing the financial performance of sales. One of these methods is to increase the gross profit ratio by reducing the cost of production.
• Downsizing: Reasons and Consequences The reason for the perceived lack of alternatives may lie in the lack of creative thinking on the part of the manager, however.
• Unemployment in UK To analyze why unemployment is set to rise in the UK To illustrate the true level of unemployment in UK To evaluate how technology affects unemployment in UK To analyze how inflation affects UK unemployment […]
• How COVID-19 Affected Unemployment Rate Around the World A study on the effects of COVID-19 on the employment levels in the European economies found that the pandemic led to rapid unemployment in the economies of Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK.
• Unemployment Rate of Saudi Arabia This paper discusses the impact of unemployment on the economy of a country and explores the rates of unemployment and GDP growth in Saudi Arabia.
• The Unemployment Problem in Panama This paper aims to review two current news articles about Panama, which reveal the issue of the high unemployment rate in this country, which continues to increase and has taken the form of a crisis.
• Unemployment and Underemployment This decision became a major step in relieving the social strain and allowing millions of people to survive the economic hardships caused by the imposed restrictions
• Keynesian Theory of Unemployment This brings to the conclusion that during such times the government should implement policies that are aimed at increasing aggregate demand According to Robert the, policies which the government may implement in order to reduce […]
• David Jones Company’s Strategies for Downsizing Furthermore, this report looks at the procedures of downsizing and other viable options in lieu of downsizing or in the event that the strategy fails to produce the expected results.
• Social Theory & its Relation to Social Problems: Unemployment. Furthermore, classical economists perceive unemployment as a result of excess supply that is influenced due to elevated price level of work labor.
• Unemployment Analysis and Its Measures The Federal Reserve Economic Data graphs indicate that before the Great Recession, the unemployment and total unemployment rates were relatively low at 5% and 8.
• Causes of Rising Unemployment However, this is usually not the case as the rate of employment opportunities being created are very few compared to the demands of the population and this means that many people will be unemployed regardless […]
• Youth Unemployment in Africa: A Challenge for Public Policy Makers With a large population to take care of the market for labour is overstretched from Johannesburg to Tangiers and cannot accommodate the influx of young job seekers leading to shortage or in some cases the […]
• Unemployment in Abu Dhabi and Dubai: Causes and Solutions Various studies have concluded that there is a correlation between the level of unemployment in the country and the strength of the economy.
• Unemployment Issue in the United States Though a shrinkage in the number of vacancies and the rapid increase in the number of part-time jobs have had their toll on the unemployment rates, the lack of vacancies still remains the key cause […]
• An Employee Layoff Process: Conducting the Dismissal Meeting If they fail to respect the emotions, the management might fail to control the anxiety and the fear of employees in the restructured company.
• Unemployment Rate: Impact on GDP and Inflation In such a way, the scenario shows it is vital to preserve the balance and avoid decisions focusing on only one aspect of the economy.
• Unemployment and Economic Dynamism This type of unemployment is a natural part of the economy and is generally considered to be healthy, as it allows workers to move to new, better-paying jobs.
• Unemployment Among Emerging Adults The high rate of unemployment among emerging adults is due to the following reasons: personal skills, level of education, behavioral characteristics, and lack of capital.
• Stimulus Checks: Impact of Unemployment A stimulus check is sent to taxpaying consumers to boost the economy as it provides funds for them to consume. The stimulus check offered included a high economic relief bill to deal with the pandemic.
• The Unemployment Issue in China The People’s Republic of China is the largest country in terms of population and the third largest country in the world in terms of territory.
• Downsizing for Optimizing Firm Efficiency The adoption of downsizing to mitigate the challenges mentioned above forms the basis of discussion for this paper. The section below highlights some of the benefits accrue to a firm that adopts the policy.
• Jamaica’s Unemployment and Positive Youth Development Although a recent positive trend in decreasing levels of joblessness is apparent as the country revitalizes its main source of income, the problem of the high level of unemployment among youth is persistent.
• Entrepreneurship: Reducing Unemployment The simultaneous demand for new skills, the training of which is still little accessible due to their novelty, and the loss of relevance of acquired skills lead to unemployment.
• Unemployment and Business Cycle in Australia The unemployment rate calculation formula is quite simple the number of unemployed people is divided by the total number of people in the civilian workforce.
• The Federal Unemployment Tax Some percent of wages is retained by the employer from the employee’s pay, who then remits the funds to the government on the worker’s behalf.
• Income and Unemployment in the US Economy Further, one may say that both fiscal and monetary policies work to promote the U.S.economy’s achievement of the three goals, including full employment, economic growth, and stable prices.
• Unemployment Disparity Affecting African Americans Systemic racism in the U.S.is the primary cause of the unemployment gap. Compared to white Americans, African Americans have a relatively low rate of education in the U.S.
• Forecasting Unemployment Rate With Value-Factor Model The peculiarity of the article is that the study is aimed at the consequences in the future, also considering the changes that occurred at the beginning of the pandemic.
• Economic Growth and Unemployment Relationship in the USA The corresponding figures characterize the structure of economic dynamics and the diversification of the labor market. The research limitation is the multifactorial nature of economic growth and unemployment indicators.
• CBS News Unemployment Report and Its Future Impression The labor system in America also requires reevaluation to ensure that jobs available meet the skills and abilities of the American people.
• Unemployment and Inflation Relation However, the level of unemployment and its prevailing types can differ significantly depending on the state of the economies of countries and the policies they use to combat unemployment.
• Media Coverage of Unemployment Content analysis on the topic of coverage of unemployment in the media allows you to analyze the mood and opinion of society, the tone of expression in the published media, and conclude the nature of […]
• Poverty and Unemployment Due to Increased Taxation The government on its side defended the move while trying to justify the new measures’ benefits, a move that would still not benefit the country.
• Unemployment Rate and COVID-19 in Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain The topic chosen for this study is the influence of COVID-19 on the rate of unemployment in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.
• The Impact of Trade Policy on Unemployment According to Dutt, Mitra, and Ranjan, there is a strong link between trade and unemployment, and, therefore, adaptations of various trade policies are bound to impact unemployment indirectly. Dutt, Mitra, and Ranjan note that there […]
• Employment Law: Worker Termination and Dismissal While determining reasonable notice, companies should focus on such aspects as the age of a worker, the length of employment, the health of an employee, and the availability of jobs in the community.
• Unemployment and Recession: Causes and Relationship Another cause of recession is stringent monetary policy and increased cost of oil imports which tend to lower the rate of demand in the economy.
• Unemployment in the US and Europe The level of unemployment in the United States and Europe has continued to push the recession to unprecedented levels. Most of the jobs that were lost in the United States and Europe were in the […]
• Court Sentencing: Juvenile Status and Unemployment These provisions allowed that based on prior criminal history and in consideration of the current offense, they could be transferred for trial in adults courts.
• Gender Gap’s Effect on Unemployment Rate In fact, the latter, namely, the rise in the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic, has increased the rates of unemployment significantly.
• KSA Vision 2030 and Its Impact on Unemployment This resolution intends to reduce the rates of unemployment in Saudi Arabia and increase employment opportunities for women in the kingdom.
• Unemployment Within the 20th Century The purpose of this research is about showing the issue of unemployment in the 20th century, the results that it led to, the human struggle against unemployment, and the predictions of unemployment in the future.
• Macroeconomics in Unemployment Frictional unemployment is described as the unemployment that takes place because of the movement of people from one occupation to another.
• Purposive Research Methodology for Saudi Economic Study This will allow the investigative nature of the study to be attained. The questions will be developed in cognizance to the research topic and will be based on the set objectives.
• Unemployment as the Consequence of the Development of New Technologies. What Should Private Firms and Government Do? The development of new technologies has been considered to be the way to the high level of life on the one hand and one of the main reasons for unemployment on the other hand.
• Relationship Between Unemployment and Crimes Agnew, argue that crime is caused by strain that a person face throughout life, and this can be contributed to the degree of educational inequality in society.
• Global Recession and Unemployment Growth Connection However, the increased unemployment and the collapse of the steel industry in the United States results from the domination of companies at the microeconomic level seeking an absolute advantage at international stage. Similarly, it has […]
• UAE and GCC Economic Analysis: Inflation and Unemployment This is explained by the fact that UAE is less dependent on oil trade, hence, the inflation and unemployment rate in the UAE is lower in comparison with the countries of GCC.
• Teacher Evaluation, Discipline, and Dismissal With help of the findings of the given research, probable ideas on how to improve the existing system of teacher’s evaluation at school can be suggested, which will result in the increase of the efficiency […]
• Gender, Family, and Unemployment in Ontario’s Great Depression The introduction and all the background that Campbell gives are firmly in line with the goals of this course. The first part of the study is the business and the economic history.
• Public Administration: Unemployment Economic Impact The “official” unemployment rate is released by the U. S government is not a correct reflection of the actual state of unemployment in the nation.
• The Future of Unemployment in the United States The significance of unemployment makes it a major issue that neither the federal government nor the citizens can ignore given the fact that is one of the indicators of the strength of the economy.
• The Take-Up of Unemployment Study in USA The take up of unemployment is beneficial because it will enable the living standard of people to increase and contributes to the general performance of the economy. Small business funding ensures that more people are […]
• Financial Position of AT&T Through Downsizing As mentioned, due to the tough economic conditions that were being experienced the world over in the year 2008 and partly through 2009, the company decided to lay off close to 4% of its workforce.
• Gasoline Prices, Rates of Unemployment, Inflation, and Economic Growth The data which has been queried from the database are related to gasoline prices in California, the unemployment rate in the US, the inflation rate in the US, and Real GDP.
• Measuring Unemployment Issues in Society Types of unemployment include; frictional unemployment, cyclical unemployment, seasonal unemployment, and structural unemployment. Seasonal unemployment is a result of the rise and fall of a particular job.
• Outsourcing, Downsizing, and Delayering On the whole, outsourcing can be defined as transferring some of the firms activities to a third party or subcontractor for a certain period of time.
• Downsizing and Delayering in Organization The best way to do it is to refer to the experience of the firms, which have already faced a similar dilemma.
• Corporate Downsizing: A Guide to Planning and Execution To define the extent of downsizing and the rearrangement of roles and responsibilities that will be assigned to the rest of the staff, a company’s key goals will have to be determined, including the domains […]
• Automation Impact on Unemployment Scope: The scope of the article is to analyze and overview the connection between productivity and employment figures in the US.
• How Falling Unemployment Affect College Enrollment It is common to associate the relationship between unemployment and college enrollment with the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the Great Recession on the border of the 2000s-2010s.
• Macroeconomics: Unemployment Rate in North America Such indicators of economic development as the labor force rate and the unemployment rate are the significant aspects of state development and its policies regarding the labor market.
• Consumer Price Index and Unemployment Rate The first issue is related to the tendency of consumers to adjust their preferences based on prices faster than the CPI can reflect, leading to inaccurate representations of the data in the index.
• Econometrics: Poverty, Unemployment, Household Income The goal of this project is to come up with a model that relates to the poverty level in the United States and the unemployment rate and total household income.
• Recommendations for Determining the Dismissal of Jessie In her complaint, Jessie argues that she has been discriminated against because of her impairment and that her supervisor did not give her a reasonable allowance to accommodate her disability.
• United States Unemployment Rates in 2013-2014 In the first four months of 2014, the rate of unemployment in the United States dropped to about 6. 3 percent, and the number of the unemployed dropped by about 1.
• Due Process and Fair Dismissal of Teachers in Texas Specifically, the due process does not explain why a teacher should be dismissed but provides the procedures that should be followed by a school to dismiss a teacher.
• Self-Reported Community Health and Unemployment Rate The initiative to increase the number of job offerings instead of spending money on health fairs and educational programs can positively affect the mental well-being of the community.
• Robots as a Factor in Unemployment Patterns One of the prevailing arguments in regards to this problem is that the advent of the robot technology is contributing towards a high rate of unemployment.
• Unemployment Values: Types and Impacts The first impact of unemployment on the economy is the extra financial costs that a government may have to incur when unemployed persons are paid some stipends.
• Foreign Direct Investment Role in Unemployment The following report explores the evidence behind the claims of both the advocates and the opponents of globalization and one of its prominent manifestations foreign direct investment to determine whether its effect could be used […]
• Unemployment as a Local Economic Issue The evaluation of these aspects is crucial to the current research for the reason that it would help highlight the weak spots of the modern employment apparatus and suggest novel ways of dealing with unemployment.
• Naked Economics: Understanding the Dismissal Science Thus, the chapter tackles the topic of the value of money, which is confusing and often misinterpreted by the public. While the topic of international trade seems to be interesting only to the specialists in […]
• Organizational Downsizing and Survival Syndrome However, in case the rate of mass lay-offs following the downsizing of many firms exceeds the number of newly opened companies, the move to reduce the size of the available workforce is said to produce […]
• Unemployment as a Sorting Criterion The researchers developed a study to evaluate the relationship between the length of unemployment and the stigmatization attitude associated with employers when they handle the affected job applicants.
• Spain and Its Unemployment Problems The low rate of employment is the most renowned characteristic of the Spanish economy as per the close of the Twentieth Century.
• Unemployment Insurance Policy in the United States Despite some of the efforts embraced by different communities, the issue of unemployment has continued to affect the welfare of many citizens in the country.
• Employment Status, Dismissals and Exit Interviews Secondly, the status helps to determine the obligations of the employer towards the individual, and the rights of the individual. For example, only employees may present claims of unfair dismissal by an employer and the […]
• Dismissal Meeting: The Art of Delivering Bad News Therefore, sympathy toward the employee and the recognition of the latter’s contribution to the company’s growth, as well as the acknowledgment of their professional expertise, must be viewed as the foundation for the communication.
• US Teachers’ Rights, Dismissal, and Discrimination First of all, the principal violates the First Amendment since she deprives the woman of her freedom of expression and the ability to speak freely.
• Unemployment in Sydney: Spatial Patterns Analysis In contrast, such areas as North West Sydney or Upper North Shore that have the lowest level of unemployment and the highest level of household income.
• Unemployment Rate as the Biggest National Economy Challenge The United States has the largest national economy and it is the largest trading nation in the world. The recent financial crisis of 2008 increased the rate of unemployment, and impacted the economy negatively.
• Unemployment in Sweden: Causes and Solutions This research looks at one of her most celebrated program that turned out later on to be the source of misery to a good number of her population; that is the welfare program that was […]
• Unemployment and State of the US Economy However, it is necessary to emphasize that the consideration of a great number of various key points at the same time is the guaranty of the efficient and prosperous economy of the state.
• Unemployment in Saudi Arabia Much effort has been in place to from the government of Saudi Arabia in order to address the question of unemployment despite the fact that the nation is full of vast deposits of crude oil.
• Inflation and Unemployment in the United States In the 21st century, there are so many issues in the economy of the United States. This is increasing the demand for skilled workers by the day as opposed to the unskilled.
• Unemployment and Inflation Issues In most cases, if one is suffering structural unemployment, it is as a result of improvement in a certain area, or a change in the way things are done.
• Unemployment in the United States It could be assumed that unemployment is a critical issue in the United States of America, as it has a strong impact on the society and other spheres of everyday life.
• Government’s Role in Macroeconomic Stability: The Need for Stronger Fiscal Policies The role of government in influencing the macroeconomic sphere of the economy is one that cannot be understated. One of the foremost negative effects of such fiscal policy is that the influx of government-induced money […]
• US Unemployment: Economic Analysis and Solutions In the first news article titled “The US has a Jobs Crisis: Here’s How to Fix it,” the authors use the latest statistics to demonstrate the problem of unemployment in the US, before relying on […]
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After dropping in 2020, teen summer employment may be poised to continue its slow comeback.

Last summer, businesses trying to come back from the COVID-19 pandemic hired nearly a million more teens than in the summer of 2020.

Most in the U.S. say young adults today face more challenges than their parents’ generation in some key areas

About seven-in-ten say young adults today have a harder time when it comes to saving for the future, paying for college and buying a home.

Some gender disparities widened in the U.S. workforce during the pandemic

Among adults 25 and older who have no education beyond high school, more women have left the labor force than men.

Immigrants in U.S. experienced higher unemployment in the pandemic but have closed the gap

With the economic recovery gaining momentum, unemployment among immigrants is about equal with that of U.S.-born workers.

During the pandemic, teen summer employment hit its lowest point since the Great Recession

Fewer than a third (30.8%) of U.S. teens had a paying job last summer. In 2019, 35.8% of teens worked over the summer.

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About four-in-ten unemployed workers had been out of work for more than six months in February 2021, about double the share in February 2020.

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About a year since the coronavirus recession began, there are some signs of improvement in the U.S. labor market, and Americans are feeling somewhat better about their personal finances than they were early in the pandemic.

Unemployed Americans are feeling the emotional strain of job loss; most have considered changing occupations

About half of U.S. adults who are currently unemployed and are looking for a job are pessimistic about their prospects for future employment.

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Public Health Impacts of Underemployment and Unemployment in the United States: Exploring Perceptions, Gaps and Opportunities

Preethi pratap.

1 School of Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA; ude.ciu@mevol (M.L.); ude.ciu@inonazj (J.Z.); ude.ciu@otanodc (C.D.)

Alison Dickson

2 Champaign School of Labor and Employment Relations, University of Illinois Urbana, Chicago, IL 60607, USA; ude.sionilli@adaseuqa

Marsha Love

Caitlin donato, michael a. flynn.

3 National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, OH 45226, USA; vog.cdc@4esd (M.A.F.); vog.cdc@4sap (P.A.S.)

Paul A. Schulte

Background: Unemployment, underemployment, and the quality of work are national occupational health risk factors that drive critical national problems; however, to date, there have been no systematic efforts to document the public health impact of this situation. Methods: An environmental scan was conducted to explore the root causes and health impacts of underemployment and unemployment and highlight multilevel perspectives and factors in the landscape of underemployment and unemployment. Methods: included a review of gray literature and research literature, followed by key informant interviews with nine organizational representatives in employment research and policy, workforce development, and industry to assess perceived needs and gaps in practice. Results: Evidence highlights the complex nature of underemployment and unemployment, with multiple macro-level underlying drivers, including the changing nature of work, a dynamic labor market, inadequate enforcement of labor protection standards, declining unions, wage depression, and weak political will interacting with multiple social determinants of health. Empirical literature on unemployment and physical, mental, and psychological well-being, substance abuse, depression in young adults, and suicides is quite extensive; however, there are limited data on the impacts of underemployment on worker health and well-being. Additionally, organizations do not routinely consider health outcomes as they relate to their work in workforce or policy development. Discussion and Conclusions: Several gaps in data and research will need to be addressed in order to assess the full magnitude of the public health burden of underemployment and unemployment. Public health needs to champion a research and practice agenda in partnership with multisector stakeholders to illuminate the role of employment quality and status in closing the gap on health inequities, and to integrate workforce health and well-being into labor and economic development agendas across government agencies and industry.

1. Introduction

In the last thirty years the economic realities facing a majority of workers globally have become more severe due to broad shifts in macroeconomic policies and “disruptions involving new technologies and growing trade links” [ 1 ]. Often referred to as the “changing nature of work”, workers across the income spectrum increasingly face labor market insecurities and austerity in public programs designed to alleviate worker hardships [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. These trends will likely continue as work becomes more precarious across numerous industrial sectors and worker protections, such as labor unions, are weakened [ 2 ]. Much has been written about the changing nature of work and growing labor market insecurities since the 1980s [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. The changing nature of employment relationships and the contemporary “fissured workplace” [ 6 ] has resulted in a decline in the number of secure, full-time jobs [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. There is a growing awareness that these economic forces may result in adverse effects on mental health, health behaviors, and chronic disease; however, there is a limited understanding of the full impact of the changing nature of work on the health and well-being of the workforce [ 7 , 8 , 9 ].

A renewed call for contemporary research to understand the relationship between health implications and unemployment, underemployment, and the changing nature of work has arisen in the past decade [ 10 , 11 ]. Rosenthal et al. [ 7 ] argue that because of “changes and cuts to social welfare services, decreases in the number of secure, full-time jobs, and general changes in the workforce over the past several years, it is important to re-examine the associations of employment status with mental and physical health, as they may differ from past decades”. Rosenthal [ 7 ] also suggests that it is “vital for the health and well-being of all people to increase not simply employment, but specifically full-time employment”.

The United States has experienced an alarming increase in suicide rates, opioid/other drug and alcohol abuse, and poorer physical and mental health, which can be traced in part to unemployment, underemployment, and the quality of working lives [ 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Research indicates that the absence of employment in good jobs contribute to these “deaths of despair” [ 12 ]. The lack of skills and opportunities and an increase in hopelessness and despair have led to a drastic increase in mortality arising in middle-age, white Americans [ 12 ], increased depression in young adults [ 13 , 14 ], the increased likelihood of unemployment and health problems in African Americans [ 13 ], and increased opioid overdose mortality associated with automotive assembly plant closures, “highlighting the role of declining economic opportunity in the US opioid overdose crisis” [ 15 ].

Underemployment and unemployment (and employment status in general) are often framed as economic problems, but they are also complex and multifaceted public health issues interacting with multiple social determinants of health that play a crucial role in perpetuating health inequities. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment, underemployment, and the quality of work were national occupational health risk factors that drove critical national problems. The pandemic has made it very evident that the economy and jobs are social constructs that impact the distribution of health outcomes across a population [ 16 , 17 ]. Distribution of benefits and risks associated with work, just like the distribution of health outcomes, are inequitable and impacted by social factors, such as race and gender [ 18 ]. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [ 19 ], as of April 2021 the unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 9.8 million, was still 4.0 million higher than in February 2020. The number of permanent job loses, at 3.5 million, is 2.2 million higher than February 2020. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 4.2 million, is up by 3.1 million since February 2020 accounting for 43.0 percent of the total unemployed. It is anticipated that both the economy and jobs will continue undergoing significant changes and some jobs lost during the pandemic may be lost for good because businesses have adopted new ways to operate [ 1 , 20 ]. COVID-19 has only accelerated existing trends in remote work, e-commerce, and automation [ 1 ] and it may take several years to fully-realize the societal impacts of the new post-pandemic economy.

One key concept in public health is preventability, and there are conceivable ways to reduce and/or prevent the impacts of underemployment and unemployment. Work can be understood as a primary vehicle for responding to the Surgeon General’s Call to Action on Community Health and Prosperity [ 21 ]. The simple distinction of comparing employment to unemployment obscures the complexity of the relationship between work and health. Ezzy [ 22 ] and Warr [ 23 ] show that unemployment is not always harmful, and reemployment does not necessarily remediate underlying issues. Friedland and Price [ 24 ] succinctly summarized the research on these experiences: “when people lose jobs that are especially stressful, they often do not experience declines in well-being” [ 25 ] and “the quality of work plays a critical role in determining whether work is a source of well-being or cause of ill-being” [ 26 ]. Failure to account for the quality of employment may lead to an underestimation of both the harmful effects of unemployment and the beneficial effects of high-quality employment [ 27 ]; “Being unsatisfactorily employed is as bad as being unemployed” [ 28 , 29 , 30 ].

According to the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) definition, decent work “involves opportunities for work that is productive and delivers a fair income, security in the workplace and social protection for families, better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organise and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and equality of opportunity and treatment for all women and men” [ 31 ]. During the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, decent work and the four pillars of the Decent Work Agenda—employment creation, social protection, rights at work, and social dialogue—became integral elements of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [ 32 ]. Goal 8 of the 2030 agenda calls for the promotion of sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work, and will be a key area of engagement for the ILO and its constituents [ 32 ]. Furthermore, key aspects of decent work are widely embedded in the targets of many of the other 16 goals of the UN’s new development vision. While the United States is a large donor [ 33 ] and supporter of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda, there is limited evidence of efforts to fully adopt or implement this agenda within the US. Decent work provides economic security, self-esteem, and social connectedness, and, as COVID-19 has highlighted, work can also undermine these same factors and contribute to the inequitable distribution of health outcomes [ 16 , 17 , 18 ].

Although there is an awareness of the impact of underemployment and unemployment on the health and well-being of US workers, to date there have been no systematic efforts to document the public health impact of this situation. The goal of this study was to gather evidence to reframe underemployment and unemployment (including, but not limited to, as it relates to a lack of employability skills) as public health problems and to contribute to the development of a strategic public health action agenda to address the identified areas of strengths, gaps, and opportunities. Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes and interrelationships rather than linear cause–effect relationships. It involves a process of continuous change rather than perspectives at one point in time [ 34 , 35 ]. Applying a systems lens can reveal the causal pathways for underemployment and unemployment that exist at multiple levels within and outside organizations and institutions, and the resources and opportunities needed to address them. The authors conducted an environmental scan [ 36 ] with qualitative methods to “unpack” underemployment and unemployment through a public health lens to assess the challenges, needs, strongest areas of alignment, and possible leverage points for future research and action.

This study was completed just before the onset of the pandemic and the findings describe the pre-pandemic state of underemployment and unemployment in the US workforce by exploring the perspectives and interrelationships of stakeholders. However, these findings also forecast the fractured experience and challenges faced by workers and stakeholders during the on-going pandemic, and highlight the urgency in accounting for the growing impacts of underemployment and unemployment on the health and well-being of the workforce as we navigate the post-pandemic economy and future of work.

The primary objectives of this study were to: (1) describe the root causes/drivers of underemployment and unemployment; (2) document perceptions of underemployment and unemployment among multilevel stakeholders alongside the perceived barriers and facilitators to employment; (3) describe health and economic impacts of underemployment and unemployment; and (4) identify connections and points of leverage for action.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. literature review.

Multiple comprehensive and structured searches of the scholarly literature were conducted between October 2018 and December 2019 in the following databases, without date restrictions: PubMed, Business Source Premier, CINAHL, EconLit, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts, and Web of Science Core Collection. Several iterative searches were performed using search terms centering on the two conceptual domains of underemployment/unemployment and health outcomes (health care services, mental health, depression, anxiety, suicide, addiction, food insecurities, homelessness, interventions, program evaluation, program implementation, skills gap, public health, community health, economy, labor policies). No specific exclusion criteria were used for this phase of the search. Separate searches on a number of subtopics were carried out in order to address the multiple facets of this broad topic. Subtopic searches included, but were not necessarily limited to: how underemployment and unemployment are defined in the literature, drivers of underemployment and unemployment, health and economic implications at both the individual and community levels, facilitators and barriers to employment, and key stakeholders in addressing these issues. General web searches were performed to identify gray literature, as well as targeted searches of the websites of organizations known to be working on addressing issues of underemployment and unemployment. These searches included, but were not limited to, policy groups such as the Economic Policy Institute and the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Harvard Business Review, the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, J.P. Morgan Chase, the National Employment Law Project, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the National Skills Coalition, the US Department of Labor, and federal, state, and local workforce training groups. Literature retrieved included think tank and research reports, white papers, and US national, state, and local government reports. A total of 327 articles were amassed according to the methods outlined above (these included 286 peer-reviewed publications and 41 gray literature publications). The abstracts were scanned by three team members (including a university librarian) and sorted by the following themes: health impact, mental health, community and social aspects, skills gaps, economics, policies and programs related to skills training, public–private workforce partnerships, underemployment, and unemployment. Two coders initially scanned articles and reports that they were familiar with from the literature and identified additional articles which were cited. A memoing process [ 37 ] was used to identify recurring themes related to the a priori research questions, which led to a comprehensive review of 52 articles and a basic examination of an additional 45 articles (including 13 gray literature publications). The authors prioritized US-specific publications and reports for this phase of the review; however, a few key studies from other developed countries, such as the United Kingdom, were included to support literature findings or draw comparisons. Initial results of the literature review were used to identify domain areas for the interviews.

2.2. Interviews

Representatives from nine different organizations were individually interviewed between March and September 2019, with each interview lasting approximately 45–60 min. Key informants included representatives from two nonprofit policy think tanks, two workforce development organizations, a national skills coalition, a grassroots worker center focusing on temporary staffing workers, one community colleges system (amongst the largest in the United States) and two industry representatives, one from a regional hotel and lodging trade association and one from a national manufacturing association. Key informants were identified from a pool of local, regional, and state, and national nonfederal organizations who are addressing worker health and safety, specifically through initiatives addressing underemployment and unemployment in the United States. An initial purposive sample of potential participants and their contact information was generated by the project team. The participants were then recruited to ensure that we captured a wide range of responses that illustrate the diverse interests and possible commonalities in addressing underemployment and unemployment and its connection to health. The participants selected were chosen to maximize understanding by increasing the likelihood of gaining access to perspectives that challenge, alter, and further inform our initial understanding of these issues from the literature.

A predetermined, semi-structured interview tool was used to elicit respondent beliefs and concerns about underemployment and unemployment and the impact on health. The interview tool was structured to cover specific topics, including: (1) how the concepts of underemployment and unemployment are perceived and characterized (including drivers) by stakeholders at the local, regional, and national levels; (2) health and its relationship to underemployment and unemployment; (3) initiatives currently underway that identify and address possible pathways to employment and the barriers to implementation of these initiatives; and (4) strengths and opportunities for engaging multisector stakeholders to align and increase resources to address underemployment and unemployment. Respondents were asked to express their opinions and concerns on these topics.

Analysis of the transcripts was conducted using qualitative content analysis (thematic), a method used to categorize large amounts of text from transcripts by assigning initial codes to text segments based on attributes to the phenomenon that accurately reflected the a priori research questions and relevant research findings [ 38 ]. Two coders reviewed and coded each interview transcript based on the focused coding categories: the perspectives on the definitions of underemployment and unemployment; drivers of each; health factors connected to the ability to access, or not access, work and livable wages (an approximate income to meet a family’s basic needs [ 39 ]); how they view work as a meaningful and significant determinant of health outcomes; perceptions about skills gap in the labor market; barriers to doing the work they are doing; and emergent themes (i.e., those unanticipated issues relevant to the topic that participants raised). An intra-case/cross-case analysis was performed to analyze and code both the anticipated (a priori) and unanticipated themes. Relevant quotations thus organized were selected for further analysis (based on the initial coding and alignment with research objectives).

All phases of coding and analysis were performed manually. Data were analyzed through an iterative process of reflective reading of transcripts, interpretive memoing, and coding and exploring inconsistencies and divergent perspectives, or cases that did not fit with the initial interpretations [ 37 ]. Respondents’ accounts of their experiences working in policy, advocacy, workforce development, and other relevant labor market issues were then clustered together in themes to provide an account of respondent meanings and interpretations of the phenomenon [ 37 ]. The open-ended questions used to guide the interviews elicited a variety of participant responses, and qualitative analysis uncovered an assortment of main themes. Key themes from the literature review and key informant interviews were examined to identify a crosswalk of common and divergent themes, areas of alignment, and gaps in evidence [ 38 ]. The uniformity of themes across interviews seems to suggest that the results are reasonably reliable.

The findings presented in this section highlight the four overarching themes and several subthemes emerging from the crosswalk of themes from the review of 74 peer-reviewed and gray literature publications and the nine key informant interviews. These themes describe the landscape of unemployment, underemployment, and the impact on health outcomes.

3.1. Large Macro-Level Issues Are Driving the Underemployment and Unemployment Narrative

A number of convergent themes emerged from the literature review and discussion around the significant drivers of underemployment and unemployment. While the cyclical nature of the labor market and recession were commonly reported drivers of underemployment and unemployment, a number of other factors, ( Figure 1 ) including the changing nature of work [ 40 ], a lack of quality jobs [ 41 ], the devaluing of workers, depressed wages, disinvestments by both the public and private sectors on worker education and training [ 6 ], a dynamic labor market, and inequalities in the distribution of public funding/resources emerged in both the literature and key informant interviews.

Description of the key themes emerging from the literature review and key informant interviews.

Fenwick and Tausig [ 42 ] argued that we need to address the role that macroeconomic changes have had on the structure of work. As economic changes transformed the organization of work, they modified the work environment, subjecting employees to stressful work conditions. They also linked the economic stress and work stress approaches by arguing that “macroeconomic and economic changes affect exposure to life events such as unemployment as well as the level of stress from changing work roles and the structure of the workplace” [ 42 , 43 ]. Ferman and Gordus [ 44 ] proposed a model in which economic change resulted in displacement and loss of work for some groups. In their study, they observed that “displaced individuals may accept employment with fewer economic and other benefits including protection from unfair work practices, or lower status positions…” and that “career patterns of these individuals may change, as they find immediate re-employment, move from job to job, or remain unemployed, and this was argued to cause stress and instability” [ 44 ].

Research also explores the wage penalty suffered by involuntary part-time workers. Golden [ 45 ] found that amongst workers paid by the hour in the US, voluntary part-time workers earned USD 15.61 per hour on average compared with only USD 14.53 for those who could “find only part time work”. Using data from the United Kingdom, Blanchflower and Bell obtained similar results in their working paper [ 46 ], finding that individuals who wanted more hours (part-timers wanting full-time employment), had lower hourly wages than voluntary part-timers and full-timers. This leads to the implication that “part-timers who want extra hours are paid less than part-timers who are content with their hours”. In the US, there was a norm of average wages rising 4 percent per year in the years before the Great Recession (2007–2009) and 2 percent subsequently. The US federal minimum wage has remained unchanged at USD 7.25 since 2009 [ 47 ]. Twenty-nine states have set the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage [ 47 ]. Research suggests associations of increased wages with improved birth outcomes, lower rates of sexually transmitted infections among women, as well as decreases in both suicide mortality and hypertension [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ].

One often cited explanation for persisting underemployment and unemployment is the debate over the supposed “skills gap” asserted by US employers. The literature revealed diverse views of the skills gap argument in the academic literature [ 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 ] versus the consulting world [ 57 , 58 , 59 ]. Data from reports (mostly industry specific) in the gray literature and some of the key informant interviews support the fact that there are some skills gaps, but there was no strong evidence to support the argument that there is an overall skills gap; rather, what emerged was a skills mismatch issue, a lack of clear information on what the education and skills acquisition pathway is for the future of work, and employers’ lack of investment in skills training for their workers.

Five out of nine interview respondents described the current labor economy as set up to basically discount the value of workers and lamented the role of declining unions and enforcement standards and their impact on job quality and pay:

“All of the things that gives power to workers……like unions, strong labor standards, strong enforcement of those standards. Those have all been diluted so dramatically…” —interview respondent from a policy group.

“you lost the job at the unionized place where you were making USD 30 an hour and the only jobs that are available now are USD 9 an hour. It’s just like totally and utterly demoralizing and catastrophic at every level. […]…… where are those other good jobs you can find when you lost a job…[…]… one of the things that made it so bad for so many people is they can’t find another one that can sustain their living standards” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

“what used to be the experience of marginalized workers (for whatever reason they were marginalized) has actually become some of the experience of mainstream workers” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

“Employers have no investment in their workers. They’re not the employer of record anymore […]…they have every incentive in the world to outsource their work. So, it doesn’t matter if you’re blue collar, white collar or even university professors. […]……work is constantly being non-standardized” —interview respondent from a worker advocacy group.

“the jobs aren’t particularly good. I just don’t know people who are like, “Oh, I’m dying to be in retail.”… the growth in terms of number of jobs…it is in the services, it is in hospitality, retail, education services, and the occupations that grow the most are the lowest paid. I think the wages thing is totally key. We have the employer, who in this country has a lot of power to keep wages down. And they do exercise that power” —interview respondent from a policy group.

Among the interview respondents, there was a strong convergence perception that the idea of a skills gap preventing access to the labor market, a claim made by many employers as the most significant barrier to work, is only one explanation for barriers to the labor market. Six of the nine respondents pointed to the role of particularly burdensome barriers (unrelated to skills) for certain individuals and communities in accessing the labor market, including older age, history of incarceration, child/family care needs, transportation needs, and driver’s license status, all of which can significantly impede access to employment.

“I think that the story is a lot less about workers not having the right skills. I’m not saying that skills are not important but a huge share of jobs in this country require no training or maybe some high school ……[…]… look at BLS data…and the astounding number of jobs that just don’t actually require that many specific skills. And the difference between what is a good job and not a good job are unions and labor standards. …[…]… is a bigger player than the skills story…” —interview respondent from a policy group.

Interview respondents also expressed concerns over the disproportionate amounts of both public and private investment going to people higher along the education spectrum.

“we are not targeting that federal or private investment in workers who need it in order to progress along their career pathway. …[…]… we are spending USD 140 billion on federal student aid every year but only 14% of that is going to skills training programs, there’s a mismatch between what people are experiencing, and what people want to be doing and what we’re actually spending money on” —interview respondent from a skills coalition group.

Overall, interview respondents reported that underemployment and unemployment are influenced by a variety of factors that are often ignored by many policy makers and employers, yet have a direct impact on the ability of many people to access the labor market and gain the stability and health outcomes connected to attaching to the labor market in a sustainable way.

3.2. Gaps Exist in the Definitions and Measures of Underemployment and Unemployment

A common theme emerging from both the literature review and key informant interviews was that while the official unemployment rate was at historically low levels in the US prior to the pandemic, the large number of underemployed workers indicates that the country’s labor markets were not anywhere close to full employment, even before the pandemic. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) [ 60 ] defines full employment as an economy in which the unemployment rate equals the nonaccelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU), no cyclical unemployment exists, and GDP is at its potential. The full-employment assumption links BLS projections to an economy running at full capacity and utilizing all of its resources [ 60 ]. In order to best understand the negative health impacts linked to a lack of work, researchers are best served looking at the different measures of underemployment and unemployment and its impacts on varying geographies, sectors, and worker demographics.

The BLS has a specific definition of unemployment: those who do not have a job but are available for work and have looked for work in the past four weeks. According to BLS data, in December 2019 (before the pandemic), the US unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, the lowest since 1969, and the number of unemployed persons was at 5.8 million [ 61 ]. Although the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) edged down to 1.2 million (20.9 percent of the unemployed), this number still remained higher than it was before the Great Recession (2007–2009) [ 61 ]. Similarly, the proportion of people unemployed for longer periods (52 weeks or more) also remained higher than before the Great Recession and about 1.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in December 2019 [ 61 ]. These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. Among the marginally attached, there were 277,000 discouraged workers in December 2019, which was 98,000 less than the number of such workers in the previous year [ 61 ]. Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 969,000 persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities [ 61 ].

As defined by Feldman [ 62 ], underemployment is the inability to obtain adequate employment relative to some standard. Based upon previous research conducted by Feldman [ 62 ] and McKee-Ryan and Harvey [ 63 ], Thompson et al. [ 64 ] aggregated the types of underemployment that affect how individuals perceive their job situation. Accordingly, education or experience underemployment occurs when individuals possess more education or experience than is required for their jobs, while “individuals who earn less at their current job than they did previously or those earning 20% less than their peers suffer from wage underemployment” [ 64 ]. Job status underemployment characterizes individuals who would like to work full time but who can only find part-time employment, and job field underemployment affects people who are forced to work in a field of employment that is outside their area of formal education and/or job experience [ 64 ].

The most widely available measure of underemployment estimated by statistical agencies around the world, such as the BLS in the US, the Office for National Statistics in the UK, and the EU statistical agency Eurostat, is the share of involuntary part-time workers in total employment, also known as the involuntary part-time rate (IPTR). In Europe, involuntary part-timers are described as part-timers who want full-time jobs (PTWFT). In the United States they are described as part-time for economic reasons (PTFER). The number of PTFER, sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers (or underemployed workers) was at 4.3 million in the US in December 2019 [ 61 ], representing 2.7 percent of the working population. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. The fact that millions of workers wanted to work more hours indicated that the labor market still had plenty of slack. Gallup polls from 2010 found that 18 percent to 25 percent of American workers perceived themselves as underemployed—a stark contrast to the BLS underutilization rate of 6.4 percent [ 65 , 66 ]. Previous research by Jensen and Slack [ 67 ] concurs that “underemployment was proposed as a more exhaustive and hence more valid measure of employment hardship than mere unemployment.” Therefore, in December 2019, while the US unemployment rate had returned to levels seen pre-recession, underemployment remained elevated [ 61 ] and undercounted because, although people talk about the term “underemployment”, there is not much in the literature or policy about standard ways to measure it in the labor market. The US Labor Department, in its current measure of “part time for economic reasons”, does not ask how many hours the underemployed want to work and therefore does not do a good job of measuring underemployment.

The literature on the characteristics of underemployed individuals has grown exponentially in the past three decades. Blanchflower and Levin [ 68 ] showed that in the US the rise of underemployment “represents another dimension of labor underutilization.” Discrimination in the labor market based on age and race emerged as prominent themes in the literature. Early studies examining underemployment and the experiences of different racial and ethnic groups found that minority groups in the US (e.g., Blacks, Latinos, immigrants) have higher prevalence (compared to non-Hispanic Whites and Asians) of underemployment, even after controlling for human capital, industry, occupation, family structure, and other predictors [ 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ]. Valletta et al. [ 73 ] found that young workers under the age of twenty-four, the single, the least educated, Blacks and Latinos, and the unincorporated self-employed are most likely to work part time involuntarily. Another early study focused on gender disparities, with women showing higher prevalence of working poverty and involuntary part-time work [ 74 ]. The overrepresentation of women, ethnic/racial minorities, and foreign-born individuals among the unemployed and underemployed suggests that structural disadvantages overlap and interact with one another in the lives of many workers, leading to cumulative precariousness that likely aggravates existing health inequities [ 75 , 76 ].

Key informants were first asked to provide their own personal definitions of the terms (underemployment and unemployment). Respondents shared the meaning, significance, and outcomes of varied perceptions about the definitions of underemployment and unemployment. Comments from respondents reveal miscommunication of unemployment rates provided to the public, influencing decisions and considerations from the public and policy makers. Most described a common public perception that while unemployment numbers may look good overall, substantial differences are experienced in the labor market not related to the economy or recessions, but based on factors related to age, race, immigrant/refugee status, trauma history, parenting status, caregiving/family/child responsibilities, history of incarceration, food insecurity, poverty, transportation access, driver’s license status, literacy skills, status of protections afforded from participation in unions, enforcement of labor standards, disability status, presence of addictions (with the individual or within the family), and homelessness.

“…there are many ways to measure unemployment and there’s the standard rate that gets reported in the mainstream media every month. A lot of people think the more accurate analysis of the strength of the economy is the employment to population ratio ……And we are actually lower by historical standard in the employment to population ratio. Another standard is for people who are still unemployed (long-term unemployment)…[…]…usually post-recession in a recovery the length of long-term unemployment starts to shorten and that hasn’t been happening” —interview respondent from a policy group.

“unemployment is at 3.5 percent. …..the overall numbers have enormous variation…….and enormously different outcomes for different individuals and different groups. Like the demographics and certain classes of workers. And the racial/minority unemployment rate is almost vastly different … essentially the black unemployment rates is twice the white unemployment ratings this time or that time” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

“unemployment rate…is a kind of a marker that people are familiar with. For those of us in the field, we know that […] marker that people talk about globally is actually not a full picture. So that number doesn’t necessarily encompass all the folks out there who aren’t working. …we just need to make sure that people understand that” —interview respondent from a policy group.

“Underemployment for me is really just about folks that are working in subpar economic scenarios……underemployment could also then be defined as working multiple jobs to barely make it, or working multiple jobs to make it… but being underemployed in each of those areas makes it more difficult to participate say fully in family or whatever the circle of peoples experience is…” —interview respondent from a community colleges system.

3.3. Need for Quality Data on Health Outcomes for Individuals and Communities by Demographics and Geographic Levels; and for Connecting Health Data to Policy Makers, Workforce Development Agencies, Employers and Funders

3.3.1. extensive empirical literature on impacts of unemployment (mostly long term) on physical, mental health and psychological well-being.

The connection between unemployment and negative health outcomes has been well-established in the academic literature [ 77 ]. For the most part, unemployment, particularly episodes that last longer than six months, is associated with significant detrimental effects in psychological and physical well-being [ 78 , 79 ]. Perhaps most profound is how unemployment has been linked with increased mortality [ 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 ]. A number of studies have demonstrated the link between unemployment and mental health problems, including depression, somatization, anxiety, and substance abuse [ 90 , 91 , 92 ]. In their three-wave panel study on the relationships between auto plant closings and unemployment of blue-collar workers, Broman et al. explored how the mental health impacts of long-term unemployment vary across race and gender [ 93 ]. Specifically, they found that the “effect of long-term unemployment on distress and drinking was more severe among less educated workers, and responses of blacks were especially sensitive to level of education” [ 93 ]. A number of studies have also found a correlation between unemployment and increased smoking and alcohol usage [ 94 , 95 , 96 ].

A 2003 study conducted by Brown et al., from the CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, examined the relationships between unemployment and frequent mental distress (FMD), defined as 14 or more mentally unhealthy days during the previous 30 days, in a study of over 98,000 men and women aged 25–64 years in the United States [ 97 ]. This team of researchers discerned similar patterns across gender, race/ethnicity, education, income, and high unemployment areas of the US, and concluded that “unemployed persons are a population in need of public health intervention to reduce the burden of mental distress”, and that “public health officials should work with government officials to incorporate the health consequences of unemployment into economic policymaking” [ 97 ]. In 1986, Dooley and Catalano found that communities with high rates of unemployment have higher rates of suicide and mental hospitalization [ 98 ]. Research published in 2011 by Luo et al. examined the relationships between overall and age-specific suicide rates and US business cycles from 1928 to 2007 [ 99 ]. Results from their analyses showed that the “overall suicide rate generally rose during recessions and fell during expansions”, while “age-specific suicide rates responded differently to recessions and expansions” [ 99 ]. In conclusion, researchers found that business cycles (and thus unemployment levels) have the propensity to affect suicide rates, although different age groups responded differently, and that “public health responses are a necessary component of suicide prevention during economic downturns” [ 99 ].

McGee and Thompson [ 13 ] used data from the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to specifically analyze the relationship between unemployment and symptoms of depression among emerging adults (aged 18 to 25 years). Findings from their research show that almost 12 percent of emerging adults were depressed and about 23 percent were unemployed, and that significantly more unemployed than employed young adults were diagnosed with depression. In summary, their models concluded that the “odds of depression were about 3 times higher for unemployed than employed emerging adults” [ 13 ]. While many factors can contribute to depression, unemployment is typically associated with high rates of depression among adults [ 78 , 100 ] due in part to losses in social contact and status or stress related to income loss [ 101 ]. Earlier research by Galambos et al. [ 102 ] established that for emerging adults, “long experiences of unemployment increase the likelihood of experiencing depression throughout the transition” [ 102 ].

Moller [ 103 ] also noted that not all unemployed persons will seek medical assistance and that all policy initiatives must always take note that society’s most disadvantaged populations are likely to suffer most from unemployment, and that these groups might have more difficulty in accessing services and support programs [ 103 , 104 ]. A 2013 study [ 105 ] also drew the link between changes in the unemployment rate and health care choices among the affected. Specifically, Tefft et al. found that a 1 percent increase in state unemployment corresponded to a 1.58 percent reduction in the use of preventive health care services for women such as mammograms, pap tests, and annual check-ups [ 105 ]. Study researchers discerned that women and people who are already economically disadvantaged were especially sensitive to economic fluctuations. This is in part due to the fact that, as the authors noted, preventive medical care is underutilized in the United States, with only about half of the population following recommended guidelines. They suggested that “preventive care can carry a relatively high one-time cost and may be more likely to be seen as a relative luxury; therefore, changes in income, or fears of an impending loss of income during a downturn, may have a greater effect on their use” [ 105 ].

3.3.2. Limited Research on Impacts of Underemployment on Physical, Mental and Psychological Well-Being

While the health effects of unemployment have been studied for a long time, the impacts of underemployment are less studied. The limited research in this area suggests that underemployment also negatively impacts health. Friedland and Price characterize “underemployment as a potential social stressor that places demands on workers and may compromise their health and well-being” [ 24 ]. Accordingly, “social stress is arousal due to an imbalance between perceived environmental demands and perceived capacity to respond to those demands” [ 24 , 106 ]. Using longitudinal data for the US from the Americans’ Challenging Lives study from 1986–1994, Friedland and Price [ 24 ] observed some support for the hypothesis that underemployment is related to lower levels of physical health. People who are status-underemployed report more chronic disease and less functional health than do adequately employed workers. People who are income-underemployed report less functional health than do adequately employed workers. Friedland and Price caution that the “relationship between underemployment and health and psychological well-being varies by both types of underemployment and indicator of health and wellbeing” [ 24 ]. They advise researchers to specify types of underemployment and specific health indicators when describing their relationships, rather than relying on generalizations.

In their July 2018 working paper, Blanchflower and Bell examined the intersection between underemployment and well-being using data from the UK [ 107 ]. The five main measures they used to measure well-being include: happiness; life satisfaction; whether life is worthwhile; anxiety and depression. Their research found that “those who wished to increase their hours (the underemployed) rose sharply in the years after 2008, while the number who wished to reduce their hours (the overemployed) fell slightly” and that post-recession, “over-employment fell back to pre-recession levels, but underemployment did not”. Blanchflower and Bell found that while the underemployed have higher levels of well-being than the unemployed and disabled, they have lower levels of well-being than any other group of workers, full- or part-time. Both unemployed and underemployed individuals were unhappy and depressed, due in large part to their loss of earnings and the coinciding lower standards of living. Blanchflower and Bell found that the fear of unemployment was on the rise, and also found evidence of a large rise in anxiety and depression among the underemployed (between 2008–2018), especially underemployed women [ 107 ]. Research by Jones-Johnson [ 108 ] suggests a link between underemployment and both psychological and interpersonal stress that may be particularly severe when minority group status is added to the mix.

Wooden, Warren, and Drago [ 109 ] and Wilkins [ 110 ] used longitudinal data from the 2001 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, and found that underemployment lowers job and life satisfaction. Income and hours underemployment have also been shown to affect the health and well-being of workers. Prause and Dooley [ 111 ] found that underemployment lowered individuals’ self-esteem, while the following year, Dooley and Prause [ 112 ] found that workers who experience chronic hours or income underemployment report increases in symptoms of alcohol abuse. Workers who become hours- or income-underemployed after leaving high school report lower self-esteem than those who become adequately employed [ 111 ]. Finally, workers who moved from adequate employment into income underemployment experienced increases in depression, while underemployment by hours did not increase depression [ 27 ].

3.3.3. Organizations do not Routinely Consider Health Outcomes as They Relate to Their Work in Workforce Development, Policy Development or in Programs Addressing Underemployment and Unemployment

All nine interview respondents described how their work does not primarily focus on health outcomes as it relates to underemployment and unemployment. When specifically asked how health relates to underemployment and unemployment, six out of nine respondents mentioned that they believe mental as well as physical health suffers in the face of unemployment or underemployment because of feelings of worthlessness, the stress of the instability, and/or the trauma associated with the exploitation experienced when employees work for abusive employers for the purpose of being able to take care of their families, but have no recourse and no support for their situation.

Respondents described being aware of unemployment related to mental health issues and post-traumatic stress disorder, and that mental health issues and addiction issues are often part of the reasons why adult workers have not been able to successfully attach to the labor market; however, organizations are limited in the knowledge and ability to measure or address these health and trauma-related impacts.

“We don’t have any kind of connections to the health impact of a worker of not having a job. That’s not a lens that we look at” —interview respondent from industry.

“Unfortunately, the link between unemployment and health and how unemployment might cause ill health is really not something that we’ve done any work on ourselves. It’s a little bit peripheral to what we have typically looked at but I agree that we should better understand what the health impacts are” —interview respondent from a policy group.

“So much of your identity is tied up in what you do for a living and how you take care of your family that I think that mental health is a natural impact of unemployment and we as a field don’t have a good way of dealing with that” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

Exposure to trauma was mentioned as being a significant mental health issue associated with those who experience underemployment and unemployment. Trauma was described as a consequence that they believe is associated with living in long-term poverty. Organizations in workforce development are seeing an increasing need to be “trauma-informed” in their work with issues related to underemployment and unemployment and are now providing trauma-informed training for their direct service providers, especially when dealing with young adult workers. Respondents in workforce development and in industry concurred that the lack of knowledge of trauma history/experiences for marginalized populations impacts strategies to bring them (these populations) into the labor workforce.

“People don’t sleep because they work back to back jobs. People use all sorts of stimulants, everything from drinking lots of soda and pop to other substances to keep going when they have to work multiple jobs………..I think you have issues of people’s security when you have to really think about how you manage your childcare when you’re working third shift and there’s no third shift childcare in this country. But just the running at 200% all the time, sort of no sleep, the precariousness of that has effects on people’s health” —interview respondent from a worker advocacy group.

“I think one of the things that we do poorly as a system is address the health needs of—again, we meet people where they’re at. Often when we meet them, they are having health problems often related to the thing we’re trying to help them with. And we don’t have a good way of dealing with that” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

3.4. Other Challenges Expressed by Stakeholders

3.4.1. lack of a common agenda and aligned goals of multiple stakeholders creates a burden for all in accomplishing goals.

Several interview respondents mentioned that it is challenging to align goals with local and political agendas and navigate a cluttered system.

“…one of the things I’ve struggled with…is there’s so many different nonprofit groups out there……depending on who you talk to within government, everybody has their own pet project or their own organization that they have an allegiance to or a connection to” —interview respondent from industry.

“everybody has to have their own program at the federal level, and there are 2000 competing programs out there. And we’ve made it so hard to navigate the system” —interview respondent from a skills coalition group.

Participants bemoaned the lack of sustained political will in advocating for workers and described how several US policies and practices favor powerful employers.

“As far as things boosting labor standards and enforcement and unionization… those things have really honestly faced no support from (Congress) … It’s been sort of a both-sides-of-the-aisle are problematic.” —interview respondent from a policy group

3.4.2. Current Workforce Development and Education Systems Lack the Coordination and Scale Needed to Support the 21st Century US Workforce

Respondents also believed that people are getting further and further left behind because community colleges (or higher education more broadly), vocational education, work-based apprenticeships, public schools, and second chance workforce systems have so many fewer resources than before.

“The US invests at lower rates than every other industrialized country in workforce programming limitations…[…]… funding for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), our public workforce system, has declined 40% since 2001” —interview respondent from a skills coalition group.

“…[…]… there are far more people that have a college degree than we have jobs that require a college degree” —interview respondent from a policy group.

“Not just giving businesses tax breaks but what does that mean about developing the infrastructure that this industry needs to survive…. the workforce being one of them? …..[…]… we don’t have industrial policy, we don’t have any kind of workforce strategy at all.[…]….we have built these best practices into policy like demand driven, sector driven, employer driven. But that’s still very individualized and neoliberal” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

Participants also described the increasing need for support of industry–sector partnerships at the local level and the need for leadership and collaboration to bring stakeholders together.

“The role of industry and sector partnerships at a local level, these local communities of stakeholders, of local businesses, of community and technical colleges, and community-based organizations, of TANF agencies of the different folks that are interacting with and serving workers and employers is really how workforce development can be done really well. There’s good data on the fact that sectoral approaches have been successful in leading to employment and earnings outcomes. But these are the kind of partnerships that are difficult to support and difficult to sustain without federal or state investment in doing so” —interview respondent from a skills coalition group.

3.4.3. Need for Strong Public Policies and Programs to Ensure Stability, upward Mobility, and Health Equity

Active labor market policies (ALMP) such as skills training programs or job creation measures may offer a ‘‘functional equivalent’’ to employment, providing, for example, ‘‘social contacts, … a clear time structure and … the feeling of participating in a useful collective purpose’’ [ 113 ]. Voßemer et al. argues that such policies should also “equip the unemployed with a feeling of control counteracting the restrictions on individuals’ agency” [ 114 ]. A second benefit of such programs is that they may function to provide “some of the social rewards of employment”, and “counteract the loss of human capital and improve unemployed individuals’ chances for quick and adequate re-employment” [ 114 ]. Strandh [ 115 ], Gundert and Hohendanner [ 116 ], and Wulfgramm [ 114 ] all discuss how the positive effects of training or job creation programs depend on their resemblance to regular employment, their response to workers’ needs, and participants’ perceptions. Importantly, not all ALMP are alike, and “measures that have an enforcing character and are perceived as paternalistic may not improve unemployed persons’ health” [ 113 , 114 ]. Despite these limitations, Voßemer et al. concede two additional hypotheses about the moderating effects of labor market policies: the more support through active labor market policies, the weaker the negative effect of unemployment on well-being and health; and the more support through active labor market policies, the weaker the negative effect of insecure jobs on well-being and health [ 114 ].

Poor health related to underemployment and unemployment has historically been ignored in economic policy discussions at the federal and state levels in the United States [ 117 ]. Voßemer et al. argues that the link between unemployment and health is “weaker in countries that provide generous unemployment benefits in terms of coverage or eligibility, duration, and wage replacement” [ 114 ]. He finds that “in these countries, most unemployed individuals receive benefits that compensate for the income loss for a comparatively long duration” and “therefore, the unemployed are able to afford a search for adequate reemployment, meaning that they do not have to fear any lasting negative career consequences” [ 114 ]. Two hypotheses anchor this research: the more generous the unemployment benefits, the weaker the negative effect of unemployment on well-being and health; and the more generous the unemployment benefits, the weaker the negative effect of insecure jobs on well-being and health [ 114 ].

Six out of nine respondents discussed the need to develop clearer messages about the experiences of marginalized individuals and communities and advocate for them, stating that there is increasing invisibility of those who are disconnected from the labor market, and that people are “on their own” in solving the problem of being disconnected from the labor market. Other respondents implicated system and public policy failures, stating that policies do not address problems with solutions that incentivize action to increase access for those disenfranchised from the labor market.

“(When it comes to childcare) how people make it work is beyond me. I don’t understand as a society how we have not figured out how to not make this a burden on individuals because it crosses race lines, it crosses class lines. So, definitely childcare, in particular for women who are on the low spectrum of the income bracket, it’s make it or break it…if you are a logical, rational person and you are making minimum wage, you should not work because childcare costs more than what—let’s just do the numbers, right?” —interview respondent from a workforce development organization.

Overall, respondents described how the lack of a stable financial platform impacts people’s ability to access healthcare, education, food, and childcare, and supported the idea of some universal benefits.

“There is also a gap in planning and understanding and thinking about what the social needs are and then carrying schooling and training to fulfill those needs. And that has to be a partnership, not just between private sector but also public sector because all that has to be paid for” —interview respondent from a skills coalition group.

4. Discussion

The following discussion is framed around how the findings aligned or challenged our initial understanding of the issues and the implications for the public health sector.

4.1. Underemployment and Unemployment Are Symptoms of Larger Problems

While on the surface underemployment and unemployment appear to be the problem, evidence from the literature and the interviews highlight the “wicked” [ 34 , 118 , 119 , 120 ] nature of these problems, with multiple macro-level drivers underlying the surface symptoms, including the changing nature of work, a dynamic labor market, inadequate enforcement of labor protection standards, declining unions, wage depression, and weak political will interacting with multiple social determinants of health. Additionally, the US work ecosystem is characterized by multiple stakeholders in government institutions, labor, economics, policy, workforce development, advocacy, industry, and education, who are involved in complex and unpredictable interactions. Therefore, similar to other public health problems, such as housing, access to healthcare, and obesity, it poses an adaptive challenge where there is no one, known solution to the problem, or where there are too many solutions but no clear choices. Preliminary evidence of the health, economic, and social impact of underemployment and unemployment, along with the relevance of these issues in global discussions regarding the future of work and health equity, make these “public health concerns”. Addressing these “wicked” problems in a sustainable way will require a systems perspective, taking into account the complex interrelationships and divergent perspectives of the key stakeholders to design effective interventions [ 34 ].

Therefore, there is a need to increase awareness across government, business, education, and community groups that underemployment and unemployment are not only economic problems, but also public health problems, and that a concerted national, systemic effort is needed to address both. Without intervention, a growing share of workers in the United States will experience unemployment, precarious employment and/or continue to feel underemployed, regardless of occupation, which may result in an increase of adverse social, emotional, mental, and physical health effects among workers and within the workforce. However, it is important that initiatives aimed at addressing the root causes of underemployment and unemployment occur at multiple social ecological levels. Often times, interventions focus on “downstream” behaviors, such as the recent focus on enhancing or expanding skills training programs, without acknowledging and addressing other inequities in education, funding, access, and job quality/pay. These initiatives do not acknowledge or address the “upstream” inequities, and therefore will not serve as a good strategy for the future. Regardless of whatever solution is proposed, it is important to recognize that the US economy is incredibly complex and varied: “with 1100 classified industries spread across more than 300 metro areas, the US economy is too diverse and unwieldy to fully assess skills gaps for the entire country”, while “different regions [are] facing different workforce challenges” [ 121 ]. This diversity requires the “development of regional strategies grounded in local data and local context about education providers, workers, and the needs of businesses” [ 121 ].

Finding solutions to complex issues like underemployment and unemployment will require coordination among multiple stakeholders, including policymakers, government agencies, educators, and employers, all of whom must be committed to implementing a common, shared agenda. Systems thinking is, by most definitions, more than just collective action; the ‘thinking’ part means integrating diverse perspectives to arrive at a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics and vicious cycles generating and regenerating wicked problems, with people able to propose interventions that generate virtuous cycles operating in a more benign direction [ 122 ]. This involves examining how macroeconomic shifts affect local and family economies, with consequences for the material basis of well-being, and also how shared (but not universal), persistent cultural models connecting employment, material success, status, life satisfaction, and self-esteem have implications for mental as well as physical health. Organizations typically do not use a systems thinking approach [ 35 ] in developing and designing programs and interventions. Fostering partnerships and networks among these stakeholders, and facilitating the adoption of systems practice-capability in order to think and act systematically [ 122 ], may lead to the identification of gaps and potential solutions in practice and help formulate policies related to underemployment and unemployment.

4.2. Gaps in Data and Research Will Need to Be Addressed in Order to Realize the Full Magnitude and Impact of Underemployment and Unemployment

There is a need for high quality research and reliable data to help improve the measures of underemployment and unemployment, not only at the national level, but at the local level, by community, race, gender, and disability status. This means recognizing other indicators and systems for tracking and reporting the “real” unemployment rates, developing standard definitions for underemployment and collecting, analyzing, and reporting underemployment data for key demographic groups, and, most importantly, finding ways to disseminate this information to sensitize the public, employers, policy makers, and workforce development organizations. It also means that public health data collection systems need to do a better job of incorporating work-related variables [ 123 , 124 ]. This will require a blurring of the construct of work-related/nonwork-related exposures and outcomes that has served as an artificial line of demarcation between occupational health and the rest of public health research for years [ 125 , 126 ]. For example, the influence that a job, or lack thereof, has on health goes beyond physical, emotional, and social conditions at work. Indeed, one’s job or career exerts a significant influence over other aspects of life that contribute or detract from an individual’s health and that of their family, such as income, social status, housing, access to healthcare, and free time to spend with family and friends [ 127 ]. As a result, work is seen as a principal mechanism for securing the needs to address health inequities and provide a concrete social location for influencing other social determinants of health as well [ 123 , 128 , 129 ].

There is also a need for standardization of other terms and measures used in the current labor economy. Over the past decade there has been an increasing conversation about different employer—employee relationships, such as contingent work, precarious work, and other nonstandard work arrangements, such as temp work and gig work. Maddocks argues there exists greater need to distinguish the concepts of underemployment from other concepts such as nonstandard work, precarious employment, and job dissatisfaction [ 43 ]. Whereas nonstandard work has typically been defined “in contrast to a standard employment relationship where employees work full-time year-round, receiving statutory benefits, and have the expectation that they will be employed indefinitely”,… “the concept of precarious employment has been put forth by sociologists to describe some forms of non-standard work, including part-time work or variable work schedules, reduced job security, lack of union protection, low wages, lack of employer sponsored benefits, or stressful psychosocial relationships and working conditions” [ 43 , 130 ]. Accordingly, these parameters are designed to identify jobs that espouse precarious work relationships where the worker has “little or no legal or regulatory protection against experiences such as the potential loss of their job, a decline in their hours of work, or control over the labour process” [ 43 , 131 , 132 ]. Clearly, some of the attributes of precarious work are very similar to those used to identify underemployment, such as part-time work or low wages. However, while precarious jobs are expected to have negative consequences for all workers who hold them, the underpinnings of underemployment are more complex. Maddocks claims that underemployment is “a condition for the individual and not necessarily an inherent feature of the job itself” and that “underemployment indicators identify jobs that are unsatisfactory for the individual in comparison to a previous job or expectations”. This means, for example, having part-time employment when full-time work is desired, or earning lower wages than in a previous job rather than simply having part-time work at low wages. Some individuals may desire part-time, flexible work contracts, or may be employed in a precarious employment relationship without being underemployed [ 43 ]. Alternate measures of the labor market reported by respondents in the interviews were similar to those found in the literature. Respondents in all interviews stated that they do not believe we have good measures or understanding of both underemployment and unemployment, noting that measuring underemployment is particularly complicated. The labor force participation rate, along with the unemployment rate, could provide a more accurate picture of the job market.

The literature examining the links between unemployment and negative health outcomes spans almost forty years and explores contexts across continents. Substantial statistical evidence has been gathered showing the link between the lack of work in its various forms and workers’ physical and mental health problems. Overall, the literature indicates gaps in research on unemployment and specific types of underemployment, and on indicators of health and well-being in specific population groups, such as young workers, women, and low-income people of color living in neighborhoods who are disproportionately burdened by job loss. Key informant interview respondents identified two key barriers in considering health outcomes as they relate to their work in addressing underemployment and unemployment: (1) firstly, while most respondents were aware of the mental and physical impacts of underemployment and unemployment, they did not have any access to, or use for, health and well-being related tools in their program planning/thinking in workforce development, policy development, skills training, and industry; (2) secondly, respondents acknowledged the need for being “trauma-informed” in addressing prior trauma and mental health issues in workforce development programing and delivery, but were challenged by the lack of available strategies and tools. Organizations have started to develop in-house trainings and tools to address this gap; however, these programs are already underfunded, and investing in the development of these additional tools and training programs to address these barriers increases the strain on their systems and employees.

Other data needs that may promote an improved understanding of the problem include data on the impact of other nonstandard employment conditions on health and well-being, data on the role of education and training in skills gap and/or mismatch, research on sustainable wages and employment, and research on the role of the absence or presence of unions and the enforcement of labor standards.

4.3. Need for Strategic Funding to Foster Scaling-Up and Translation of Successful Models of Initiatives and Partnerships between Employers–Educators, Employers–Workforce Development, Labor Management–Advocacy in Workforce Development, Education, Research and Policy

Place-based strategies can play a critical role in improving the health and well-being of workers and communities. Often such efforts do not get reported in the literature. For example, interview respondents described initiatives where a local skills training program partnered with other local health agencies to provide childcare stipends for women in a construction apprenticeship program, where a workforce development program provided temporary housing for people who are homeless and unemployed, and where a community college system representative described how they negotiated a stipend aligned to federal standards for students enrolled in an “earn and learn” program. These stories need to be told, as they provide rich information on models and enterprises at the community level that can contribute to a comprehensive list of best practices for different economic contexts.

While there is a continued emphasis on traditional research and increasing support for translational research [ 133 ], there is also a need to support those kind of practice-based research partnerships because they are really important for providing stability, and because workforce and jobs are inherently local. Evidence produced by academic research institutions is rigorous and often shaped by the traditional values of the academy [ 134 ]. However, such research may miss opportunities to understand local contexts and produce actionable findings. Research–practice partnerships could provide policy insights and data that can facilitate rigorous and groundbreaking research; likewise, it could also provide practitioners with easy access to and timely use of research evidence [ 134 ]. Opening the door for funding practice-based research partnerships may promote collaboration between researchers and multisector stakeholders in the work ecosystem to define a more holistic agenda that aligns future research, practice, and policy. For example, a systematic analysis and evaluation of current national and local policies, funding, partnerships, and implementation strategies to boost the economy and employment may give some insights into what policies are worth scaling up. What data are being used in these decision-making processes? Workforce development organizations have developed innovative partnerships with employers to create pipelines for jobs. Right now, it is unclear how these best practices and innovative models are being evaluated for their success, how job quality (or good work, or good jobs) is being defined, how such information is being gathered and monitored, and how data (if any) are being used to strengthen the existing funding and policy structures. If we want to be strategic in scaling up these efforts, there is an urgent need for systematically researching, documenting, supporting, and disseminating these efforts.

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

The purpose of the environmental scan was not to be an exhaustive exploration of underemployment and unemployment and their outcomes (health and other). Rather, it was intended to be an exploration of evidence relevant to the field of public health and its partners that ought to be included in discussions of future strategic agendas and initiatives across public health, government agencies, industries, community colleges, universities, trade and business associations, labor organizations, and other stakeholder groups. Although the literature review was not a systematic review, it was a comprehensive review of close to 100 articles. This study could have benefitted from additional interviews that captured perspectives of a diverse spectrum of representatives from state, local, federal agencies, trade and business associations on underemployment and unemployment, and workers; however, the information gathered during the interviews provides very rich information, with convergent themes emerging across a diverse array of stakeholders, that need to be explored further. Finally, this study did not include any direct research on the health impacts of COVID-19.

The impacts of unemployment, underemployment, gig work, precarious jobs, and the changing nature of work is gaining traction around the world amidst the climate of economies struggling with the inconsistencies of the labor market in the post-pandemic world, the impending challenges for employers and workers with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and the uncertainty surrounding the future of work. While the empirical literature has established that job loss or unemployment results in significant deterioration in well-being, researchers argue that satisfaction with employment is a key ingredient differentiating employment and unemployment experiences. In the wake of the global pandemic and economic crisis, there is a unique window of opportunity to raise consciousness and highlight the urgency of delivering quality jobs along with social protection and respect for rights at work to achieve sustainable, inclusive economic growth and eliminate poverty. Recent months have seen revived discussions, by lawmakers and administration officials, of initiatives to raise the minimum wage, strengthen unions and worker protection standards, and provide a universal basic income and full employment [ 60 ]. Laudable as these efforts may be, it is highly likely that the United States could still fall short of actually bringing about the adoption and implementation of these policies and practices because, as a society, we still do not have a shared understanding of the significance of workforce health and well-being to our nation’s health.

Workforce health is population health, so what is the value of the health and well-being of the US worker and the workforce? Further, what is the value of decent work in public health policy, or public policy? Public health professionals at the intersection of occupational and population health are in a unique position to address worker and workforce health and well-being beyond the workplace by leading strategic collaborations that integrate health and economic development (work) across government agencies, and in partnership with industries, community colleges, financial institutions, universities, trade and business associations, labor organizations, and other stakeholder groups to support and promote a human-centered, equitable, and decent future of work—a future of work where every worker is healthy and able to achieve their full potential by engaging in meaningful work.

Considerations for future investments in research and practice, and a common framework to address the public health impact of underemployment and unemployment, and promote a decent future of work, are described in Figure 2 .

Considerations for a common framework to address the public health impact of underemployment and unemployment, and promote a decent future of work.

• Shift the paradigm around the value of work and its impact on individual health and communities, by investing in broadening public understanding of the health burden of underemployment and unemployment. As researchers and practitioners in the field of occupational health, we understand that although social determinants of health (SDoH) “are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age”, what people do for work and at work does not figure in larger discussions related to SDoH [ 128 ]. Despite the conceptual acknowledgment that work influences health through numerous pathways, it remains largely absent from examinations of health inequities in the United States [ 123 ]. Public health needs to illuminate the role of employment quality and status in closing the gap on health inequities.
• Strengthen capacity for research and practice by engaging the multisector stakeholders that public health may not routinely engage with, such as workforce development, labor policy, and corporate sustainability. Inclusion of health into efforts related to labor policy development and other economic development agendas can add value to discussions regarding the burden of the problem on health and the healthcare system, economic investments in skills training and social benefits, and improve the health status of workers and the workforce [ 124 ]. Strengthening infrastructure for timely use of data/evidence for action in labor policy and workforce development could ensure the jobs they create are designed to contribute to healthier workers and communities. New funding mechanisms are also needed to support practice-based research partnerships that address institutional and systems-level facilitators and barriers to the innovation and implementation of policies and initiatives in order to support local pathways to decent work.
• Coordinate the diverse efforts in the work ecosystem towards a common purpose and a shared agenda for a decent future of work. Currently, diverse agendas and potential misalignment of multiple stakeholders, the overall complexity of the problem, a lack of metrics and actionable data, and a lack of leadership and a common language are limiting the ability of stakeholders in the work ecosystem to collectively address the impact of underemployment and unemployment, and assess the future of work more generally [ 8 ]. Under the public health model, increasing the number and quality of jobs can serve as a prevention strategy by increasing economic security, self-esteem, and social connectedness. “ Public Health 3.0 A Call to Action for Public Health to Meet the Challenges of the 21st Century ” [ 135 ] refers to a new era of enhanced and broadened public health practice that goes beyond traditional public health department/agencies functions and programs. Cross sectoral collaboration is inherent in Public Health 3.0. As such, labor policy that is a part of health policy, and a discussion of job quality or decent work, not just job quantity, could help public health professionals engage in more established initiatives on sustainable development and corporate responsibility that increasingly influence development projects and how businesses and jobs are structured [ 124 ]. Public health needs to champion an agenda in partnership with multisector stakeholders to integrate workforce health and well-being into labor and economic development agendas across government agencies and industry.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Eve Pinsker and Celeste Monforton for serving as external reviewers and providing input into the final draft. We also thank Rosie Hanneke and Alice Virgil for their technical support with the literature review and qualitative analysis.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, P.P. and P.A.S.; methodology, P.P.; formal analysis, P.P. and A.D.; writing and original draft preparation, P.P.; substantial input and revisions to the manuscript, were provided by M.A.F., A.D., P.A.S., M.L., J.Z. and C.D. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

P.P. was funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (CDC/NIOSH) Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) 15IPA1518081. M.L. and C.D. were supported by the Education and Research Center training grant number T42OH008672 funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The University of Illinois Office for the Protection of Research Subjects determined that this study protocol (# 2019-0608) meets the criteria for exemption as defined in the US Department of Health and Human Services Regulations for the Protection of Human Subjects [45 CFR 46.104(d)] Category 2.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• Original Article
• Open access
• Published: 08 March 2018

Unemployment among younger and older individuals: does conventional data about unemployment tell us the whole story?

• Hila Axelrad 1 , 2 ,
• Miki Malul 3 &
• Israel Luski 4  

Journal for Labour Market Research volume  52 , Article number:  3 ( 2018 ) Cite this article

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In this research we show that workers aged 30–44 were significantly more likely than those aged 45–59 to find a job a year after being unemployed. The main contribution is demonstrating empirically that since older workers’ difficulties are related to their age, while for younger individuals the difficulties are more related to the business cycle, policy makers must devise different programs to address unemployment among young and older individuals. The solution to youth unemployment is the creation of more jobs, and combining differential minimum wage levels and earned income tax credits might improve the rate of employment for older individuals.

1 Introduction

Literature about unemployment references both the unemployment of older workers (ages 45 or 50 and over) and youth unemployment (15–24). These two phenomena differ from one another in their characteristics, scope and solutions.

Unemployment among young people begins when they are eligible to work. According to the International Labor Office (ILO), young people are increasingly having trouble when looking for their first job (ILO 2011 ). The sharp increase in youth unemployment and underemployment is rooted in long-standing structural obstacles that prevent many youngsters in both OECD countries and emerging economies from making a successful transition from school to work. Not all young people face the same difficulties in gaining access to productive and rewarding jobs, and the extent of these difficulties varies across countries. Nevertheless, in all countries, there is a core group of young people facing various combinations of high and persistent unemployment, poor quality jobs when they do find work and a high risk of social exclusion (Keese et al. 2013 ). The rate of youth unemployment is much higher than that of adults in most countries of the world (ILO 2011 ; Keese et al. 2013 ; O’Higgins 1997 ; Morsy 2012 ). Official youth unemployment rates in the early decade of the 2010s ranged from under 10% in Germany to around 50% in Spain ( http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=2229 ; Pasquali 2012 ). The youngest employees, typically the newest, are more likely to be let go compared to older employees who have been in their jobs for a long time and have more job experience and job security (Furlong et al. 2012 ). However, although unemployment rates among young workers are relatively higher than those of older people, the period of time they spend unemployed is generally shorter than that of older adults (O’Higgins 2001 ).

We would like to argue that one of the most important determinants of youth unemployment is the economy’s rate of growth. When the aggregate level of economic activity and the level of adult employment are high, youth employment is also high. Footnote 1 Quantitatively, the employment of young people appears to be one of the most sensitive variables in the labor market, rising substantially during boom periods and falling substantially during less active periods (Freeman and Wise 1982 ; Bell and Blanchflower 2011 ; Dietrich and Möller 2016 ). Several explanations have been offered for this phenomenon. First, youth unemployment might be caused by insufficient skills of young workers. Another reason is a fall in aggregate demand, which leads to a decline in the demand for labor in general. Young workers are affected more strongly than older workers by such changes in aggregate demand (O’Higgins 2001 ). Thus, our first research question is whether young adults are more vulnerable to economic shocks compared to their older counterparts.

Older workers’ unemployment is mainly characterized by difficulties in finding a new job for those who have lost their jobs (Axelrad et al. et al. 2013 ). This fact seems counter-intuitive because older workers have the experience and accumulated knowledge that the younger working population lacks. The losses to society and the individuals are substantial because life expectancy is increasing, the retirement age is rising in many countries, and people are generally in good health (Axelrad et al. 2013 ; Vodopivec and Dolenc 2008 ).

The difficulty that adults have in reintegrating into the labor market after losing their jobs is more severe than that of the younger unemployed. Studies show that as workers get older, the duration of their unemployment lengthens and the chances of finding a job decline (Böheim et al. 2011 ; De Coen et al. 2010 ). Therefore, our second research question is whether older workers’ unemployment stems from their age.

In this paper, we argue that the unemployment rates of young people and older workers are often misinterpreted. Even if the data show that unemployment rates are higher among young people, such statistics do not necessarily imply that it is harder for them to find a job compared to older individuals. We maintain that youth unemployment stems mainly from the characteristics of the labor market, not from specific attributes of young people. In contrast, the unemployment of older individuals is more related to their specific characteristics, such as higher salary expectations, higher labor costs and stereotypes about being less productive (Henkens and Schippers 2008 ; Keese et al. 2006 ). To test these hypotheses, we conduct an empirical analysis using statistics from the Israeli labor market and data published by the OECD. We also discuss some policy implications stemming from our results, specifically, a differential policy of minimum wages and earned income tax credits depending on the worker’s age.

Following the introduction and literary review, the next part of our paper presents the existing data about the unemployment rates of young people and adults in the OECD countries in general and Israel in particular. Than we present the research hypotheses and theoretical model, we describe the data, variables and methods used to test our hypotheses. The regression results are presented in Sect.  4 , the model of Business Cycle is presented in Sect.  5 , and the paper concludes with some policy implications, a summary and conclusions in Sect.  6 .

2 Literature review

Over the past 30 years, unemployment in general and youth unemployment in particular has been a major problem in many industrial societies (Isengard 2003 ). The transition from school to work is a rather complex and turbulent period. The risk of unemployment is greater for young people than for adults, and first jobs are often unstable and rather short-lived (Jacob 2008 ). Many young people have short spells of unemployment during their transition from school to work; however, some often get trapped in unemployment and risk becoming unemployed in the long term (Kelly et al. 2012 ).

Youth unemployment leads to social problems such as a lack of orientation and hostility towards foreigners, which in turn lead to increased social expenditures. At the societal level, high youth unemployment endangers the functioning of social security systems, which depend on a sufficient number of compulsory payments from workers in order to operate (Isengard 2003 ).

Workers 45 and older who have lost their jobs often encounter difficulties in finding a new job (Axelrad et al. 2013 ; Marmora and Ritter 2015 ) although today they are more able to work longer than in years past (Johnson 2004 ). In addition to the monetary rewards, work also offers mental and psychological benefits (Axelrad et al. 2016 ; Jahoda 1982 ; Winkelmann and Winkelmann 1998 ). Working at an older age may contribute to an individual’s mental acuity and provide a sense of usefulness.

On average, throughout the OECD, the hiring rate of workers aged 50 and over is less than half the rate for workers aged 25–49. The low re-employment rates among older job seekers reflect, among other things, the reluctance of employers to hire older workers. Lahey ( 2005 ) found evidence of age discrimination against older workers in labor markets. Older job applicants (aged 50 or older), are treated differently than younger applicants. A younger worker is more than 40% more likely to be called back for an interview compared to an older worker. Age discrimination is also reflected in the time it takes for older adults to find a job. Many workers aged 45 or 50 and older who have lost their jobs often encounter difficulties in finding a new job, even if they are physically and intellectually fit (Hendels 2008 ; Malul 2009 ). Despite the fact that older workers are considered to be more reliable (McGregor and Gray 2002 ) and to have better business ethics, they are perceived as less flexible or adaptable, less productive and having higher salary expectations (Henkens and Schippers 2008 ). Employers who hesitated in hiring older workers also mentioned factors such as wages and non-wage labor costs that rise more steeply with age and the difficulties firms may face in adjusting working conditions to meet the requirements of employment protection rules (Keese et al. 2006 ).

Thus, we have a paradox. On one hand, people live longer, the retirement age is rising, and older people in good health want or need to keep working. At the same time, employers seek more and more young workers all the time. This phenomenon might marginalize skilled and experience workers, and take away their ability to make a living and accrue pension rights. Thus, employers’ reluctance to hire older workers creates a cycle of poverty and distress, burdening the already overcrowded social institutions and negatively affecting the economy’s productivity and GDP (Axelrad et al. 2013 ).

2.1 OECD countries during the post 2008 crisis

The recent global economic crisis took an outsized toll on young workers across the globe, especially in advanced economies, which were hit harder and recovered more slowly than emerging markets and developing economies. Does this fact imply that the labor market in Spain and Portugal (with relatively high youth unemployment rates) is less “friendly” toward younger individuals than the labor market in Israel and Germany (with a relatively low youth unemployment rate)? Has the market in Spain and Portugal become less “friendly” toward young people during the last 4 years? We argue that the main factor causing the increasing youth unemployment rates in Spain and Portugal is the poor state of the economy in the last 4 years in these countries rather than a change in attitudes toward hiring young people.

OECD data indicate that adult unemployment is significantly lower than youth unemployment. The global economic crisis has hit young people very hard. In 2010, there were nearly 15 million unemployed youngsters in the OECD area, about four million more than at the end of 2007 (Scarpetta et al. 2010 ).

From an international perspective, and unlike other developed countries, Israel has a young age structure, with a high birthrate and a small fraction of elderly population. Israel has a mandatory retirement age, which differs for men (67) and women (62), and the labor force participation of older workers is relatively high (Stier and Endeweld 2015 ), therefore, we believe that Israel is an interesting case for studying.

The Israeli labor market is extremely flexible (e.g. hiring and firing are relatively easy), and mobile (workers can easily move between jobs) (Peretz 2016 ). Focusing on Israel’s labor market, we want to check whether this is true for older Israeli workers as well, and whether there is a difference between young and older workers.

The problem of unemployment among young people in Israel is less severe than in most other developed countries. This low unemployment rate is a result of long-term processes that have enabled the labor market to respond relatively quickly to changes in the economic environment and have reduced structural unemployment. Footnote 2 Furthermore, responsible fiscal and monetary policies, and strong integration into the global market have also promoted employment at all ages. With regard to the differences between younger and older workers in Israel, Stier and Endeweld ( 2015 ) determined that older workers, men and women alike, are indeed less likely to leave their jobs. This finding is similar to other studies showing that older workers are less likely to move from one employer to another. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median employee tenure is generally higher among older workers than younger ones (BLS 2014 ). Movement in and out of the labor market is highest among the youngest workers. However, these young people are re-employed quickly, while older workers have the hardest time finding jobs once they become unemployed. The Bank of Israel calculated the chances of unemployed people finding work between two consecutive quarters using a panel of the Labor Force Survey for the years 1996–2011. Their calculations show that since the middle of the last decade the chances of unemployed people finding a job between two consecutive quarters increased. Footnote 3 However, as noted earlier, as workers age, the duration of their unemployment lengthens. Prolonged unemployment erodes the human capital of the unemployed (Addison et al. 2004 ), which has a particularly deleterious effect on older workers. Thus, the longer the period of unemployment of older workers, the less likely they will find a job (Axelrad and Luski 2017 ). Nevertheless, as Fig.  1 shows, the rates of youth unemployment in Israel are higher than those of older workers.

(Source: Calculated by the authors by using data from the Labor Force survey of the Israeli CBS, 2011)

Unemployed persons and discouraged workers as percentages of the civilian labor force, by age group (Bank of Israel 2011 ). We excluded those living outside settled communities or in institutions. The percentages of discouraged workers are calculated from the civilian labor force after including them in it

We argue that the main reason for this situation is the status quo in the labor market, which is general and not specific to Israel. It applies both to older workers and young workers who have a job. The status quo is evident in the situation in which adults (and young people) already in the labor market manage to keep their jobs, making the entrance of new young people into the labor market more difficult. What we are witnessing is not evidence of a preference for the old over the young, but the maintaining of the status quo.

The rate of employed Israelis covered by collective bargaining agreements increases with age: up to age 35, the rate is less than one-quarter, and between 50 and 64 the rate reaches about one-half. In effect, in each age group between 25 and 60, there are about 100,000 covered employees, and the lower coverage rate among the younger ages derives from the natural growth in the cohorts over time (Bank of Israel 2013 ). The wave of unionization in recent years is likely to change only the age profile of the unionization rate and the decline in the share of covered people over the years, to the extent that it strengthens and includes tens of thousands more employees from the younger age groups. Footnote 4

The fact that the percentage of employees covered by collective agreement increases with age implies that there is a status quo effect. Older workers are protected by collective agreements, and it is hard to dismiss them (Culpepper 2002 ; Palier and Thelen 2010 ). However, young workers enter the workforce with individual contracts and are not protected, making it is easier to change their working conditions and dismiss them.

To complete the picture, Fig.  2 shows that the number of layoffs among adults is lower, possibly due to their protection under collective bargaining agreements.

(Source: Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, 2008, data processed by the authors)

Dismissal of employees in Israel, by age. Percentage of total employed persons ages 20–75 and over including those dismissed

In order to determine the real difference between the difficulties of older versus younger individuals in finding work, we have to eliminate the effect of the status quo in the labor market. For example, if we removed all of the workers from the labor market, what would be the difference between the difficulties of older people versus younger individuals in finding work? In the next section we will analyze the probability of younger and older individuals moving from unemployment to employment when we control for the status quo. We will do so by considering only individuals who have not been employed at least part of the previous year.

3 Estimating the chances of finding a job and research hypotheses

Based on the literature and the classic premise that young workers are more vulnerable to economic shocks (ILO 2011 ), we posit that:

H 1 : The unemployment rate of young people stems mainly from the characteristics of the labor market and less from their personal attributes.

Based on the low hiring rate of older workers (OECD 2006 ) and the literature about age discrimination against older workers in labor markets (Axelrad et al. 2013 ; Lahey 2005 ), we hypothesis that:

H 2 : The difficulty face by unemployed older workers searching for a job stems mainly from their age and less from the characteristics of the labor market.

To assess the chances of younger and older workers finding a job, we used a logit regression model that has been validated in previous studies (Brander et al. 2002 ; Flug and Kassir 2001 ). Being employed was the dependent variable, and the characteristics of the respondents (age, gender, ethnicity and education) were the independent variables. The dependent variable was nominal and dichotomous with two categories: 0 or 1. We defined the unemployed as those who did not work at all during the last year or worked less than 9 months last year. The dependent variable was a dummy variable of the current employment situation, which received the value of 1 if the individual worked last week and 0 otherwise.

3.1 The model

i—individual i, P i —the chances that individual i will have a full or part time job (at the time of the survey). \(\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle-}$}}{\text{X}}_{\text{i}}\) —vector of explanatory variables of individual i. Each of the variables in vector \(\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle-}$}}{X}_{i}\) was defined as a dummy variable with the value of 1 or 0. β—vector of marginal addition to the log of the odds ratio. For example, if the explanatory variable was the log of 13 years or more of schooling, then the log odds ratio refers to the marginal addition of 13 years of education to the chances of being employed, compared with 12 years of education or less.

The regression allowed us to predict the probability of an individual finding a job. The dependent variable was the natural base log of the probability ratio P divided by (1 − P) that a particular individual would find a job. The odds ratio from the regression answers the question of how much more likely it is that an individual will find a job if he or she has certain characteristics. The importance of the probability analysis is the consideration of the marginal contribution of each feature to the probability of finding a job.

3.2 The sample

We used data gathered from the 2011 Labor Force Survey Footnote 5 of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Footnote 6 which is a major survey conducted annually among households. The survey follows the development of the labor force in Israel, its size and characteristics, as well as the extent of unemployment and other trends. Given our focus on working age individuals, we excluded all of the respondents under the age of 18 or over the age of 59. The data sample includes only the Jewish population, because structural problems in the non-Jewish sector made it difficult to estimate this sector using the existing data only. The sample does not include the ultra-Orthodox population because of their special characteristics, particularly the limited involvement of men in this population in the labor market.

The base population is individuals who did not work at all during the past year or worked less than 9 months last year (meaning that they worked but were unemployed at least part of last year). To determine whether they managed to find work after 1 year of unemployment, we used the question on the ICBS questionnaire, “Did you work last week?” We used the answer to this question to distinguish between those who had succeeded in finding a job and those who did not. The data include individuals who were out of the labor force Footnote 7 at the time of the survey, but exclude those who were not working for medical reasons (illness, disability or other medical restrictions) or due to their mandatory military service. Footnote 8

3.3 Data and variables

The survey contains 104,055 respondents, but after omitting all of the respondents under the age of 18 or above 59, those who were outside the labor force for medical reasons or due to mandatory military service, non-Jews, the ultra-Orthodox, and those who worked more than 9 months last year, the sample includes 13,494 individuals (the base population). Of these, 9409 are individuals who had not managed to find work, and 4085 are individuals who were employed when the survey was conducted.

The participants’ ages range between 18 and 59, with the average age being 33.07 (SD 12.88) and the median age being 29. 40.8% are males; 43.5% have an academic education; 52.5% are single, and 53.5% of the respondents have no children under 17.

3.4 Dependent and independent variables

While previous studies have assessed the probability of being unemployed in the general population, our study examines a more specific case: the probability of unemployed individuals finding a job. Therefore, we use the same explanatory variables that have been used in similar studies conducted in Israel (Brander et al. 2002 ; Flug and Kassir 2001 ), which were also based on an income survey and the Labor Force Survey of the Central Bureau of Statistics.

3.5 The dependent variable—being employed

According to the definition of the CBS, employed persons are those who worked at least 1 h during a given week for pay, profit or other compensation.

3.6 Independent variables

We divided the population into sub-groups of age intervals: 18–24, 25–29, 30–44, 45–54 and 55–59, according to the sub-groups provided by the CBS. We then assigned a special dummy variable to each group—except the 30–44 sub-group, which is considered as the base group. Age is measured as a dummy variable, and is codded as 1 if the individual belongs to the age group, and 0 otherwise. Age appears in the regression results as a variable in and of itself. Its significance is the marginal contribution of each age group to the probability of finding work relative to the base group (ages 30–44), and also as an interaction variable.

3.6.2 Gender

This variable is codded as 1 if the individual is female and 0 otherwise. Gender also appears in the interaction with age.

3.6.3 Marital status

Two dummy variables are used: one for married respondents and one for those who are divorced or widowed. In accordance with the practice of the CBS, we combined the divorced and the widowed into one variable. This variable is a dummy variable that is codded as 1 if the individual belongs to the appropriate group (divorced/widowed or married) and 0 otherwise. The base group is those who are single.

3.6.4 Education

This variable is codded as 1 if the individual has 13 or more years of schooling, and 0 otherwise. The variable also appears in interactions between it and the age variable.

3.6.5 Vocational education

This variable is codded as 1 if the individual has a secondary school diploma that is not an academic degree or another diploma, and 0 otherwise.

3.6.6 Academic education

This variable is codded as 1 if the individual has any university degree (bachelors, masters or Ph.D.) and 0 otherwise.

3.6.7 Children

In accordance with similar studies that examined the probability of employment in Israel (Brander et al. 2002 ), we define children as those up to age 17. This variable is a dummy variable that is codded as 1 if the respondents have children under the age of 17, and 0 otherwise.

3.6.8 Ethnicity

This variable is codded as 1 if the individual was born in an Arabic-speaking country, in an African country other than South Africa, or in an Asian country, or was born in Israel but had a father who was born in one of these countries. Israel generally refers to such individuals as Mizrahim. Respondents who were not Mizrahim received a value of 0. The base group in our study are men aged 30–44 who are not Mizrahim.

We also assessed the interactions between the variables. For example, the interaction between age and the number of years of schooling is the contribution of education (i.e., 13 years of schooling) to the probability of finding a job for every age group separately relative to the situation of having less education (i.e., 12 years of education). The interaction between age and gender is the contribution of gender (i.e., being a female respondent) to the probability of finding a job for each age group separately relative to being a man.

To demonstrate the differences between old and young individuals in their chances of finding a job, we computed the rates of those who managed to find a job relative to all of the respondents in the sample. Table  1 shows that the rate of those who found a job declines with age. For example, 36% of the men age 30–44 found a job, but those rates drop to 29% at the age of 45–54 and decline again to 17% at the age of 55–59. As for women, 31% of them aged 30–44 found a job, but those rates drop to 20% at the age of 45–54 and decline again to 9% at the age of 55–59.

In an attempt to determine the role of education in finding employment, we created Model 1 and Model 2, which differ only in terms of how we defined education. In Model 1 the sample is divided into two groups: those with up to 12 years of schooling (the base group) and those with 13 or more years of schooling. In Model 2 there are three sub-groups: those with a university degree, those who have a vocational education, and the base group that has only a high school degree.

Table  2 shows that the probability of a young person (age 18–24) getting a job is larger than that of an individual aged 30–44 who belongs to the base group (the coefficient of the dummy variable “age 18–24” is significant and positive). Similarly, individuals who are older than 45 are less likely than those in the base group to find work.

Women aged 30–44 are less likely to be employed than men in the same age group. Additionally, when we compare women aged 18–24 to women aged 30–44, we see that the chances of the latter being employed are lower. Older women (45+) are much less likely than men of the same age group to find work. Additionally, having children under the age of 17 at home reduces the probability of finding a job.

A university education increases the probability of being employed for both men and women aged 30–44. Furthermore, for older people (55+) an academic education reduces the negative effect of age on the probability of being employed. While a vocational education increases the likelihood of finding a job for those aged 30–44, such a qualification has no significant impact on the prospects of older people.

Interestingly, being a Mizrahi Jew increases the probability of being employed.

In addition, we estimated the models separately twice—for the male and for the female population. For male and female, the probability of an unemployed individual finding a job declines with age.

Analyzing the male population (Table  3 ) reveals that those aged 18–24 are more likely than the base group (ages 30–44) to find a job. However, the significance level is relatively low, and in Model 2, this variable is not significant at all. Those 45 and older are less likely than the base group (ages 30–44) to find a job. Married men are more likely than single men to be employed. However, divorced and widowed men are less likely than single men to find a job. For men, the presence in their household of children under the age of 17 further reduces the probability of their being employed. Mizrahi men aged 18–24 are more likely to be employed than men of the same age who are from other regions.

Table  3 illustrates that educated men are more likely to find work than those who are not. However, in Model 1, at the ages 18–29 and 45–54, the probability of finding a job for educated men is less than that of uneducated males. Among younger workers, this might be due to excess supply—the share of academic degree owners has risen, in contrast to almost no change in the overall share of individuals receiving some other post-secondary certificate (Fuchs 2015 ). Among older job seeking men, this might be due to the fact that the increase in employment among men during 2002–2010 occurred mainly in part-time jobs (Bank of Israel 2011 ). In Model 2, men with an academic or vocational education have a better chance of finding a job, but at the group age of 18–24, those with a vocational education are less likely to find a job compared to those without a vocational education. The reason might be the lack of experience of young workers (18–24), experience that is particularly needed in jobs that require vocational education (Salvisberg and Sacchi 2014 ).

Analyzing the female population (Table  3 ) reveals that women between 18 and 24 are more likely to be employed than those who are 30–44, and those who are 45–59 are less likely to be employed than those who are 30–44. The probability of finding a job for women at the age of 25 to 29 is not significantly different from the probability of the base group (women ages 30–44).

Married women are less likely than single women to be employed. Women who have children under the age of 17 are less likely to be employed than women who do not have dependents that age. According to Model 2, Mizrahi women are more likely to be employed compared to women from other regions. According to both models, women originally from Asia or Africa ages 25–29 have a better chance of being employed than women the same age from other regions. Future research should examine this finding in depth to understand it.

With regard to education, in Model 1 (Table  3 ), where we divided the respondents simply on the question of whether they had a post-high school education, women who were educated were more likely to find work than those who were not. However, in the 18–29 age categories, educated women were less likely to find a job compared to uneducated women, probably due to the same reason cited above for men in the same age group—the inflation of academic degrees (Fuchs 2015 ). These findings become more nuanced when we consider the results of Model 2. There, women with an academic or vocational education have a better chance of finding a job, but at the ages of 18–24 those with an academic education are less likely to find a job than those without an academic education. Finally, at the ages of 25–29, those with a vocational education have a better chance of finding a job than those without a vocational education, due to the stagnation in the overall share of individuals receiving post-secondary certificate (Fuchs 2015 ).

Thus, based on the results in Table  3 , we can draw several conclusions. First, the effect of aging on women is more severe than the impact on men. In addition, the “marriage premium” is positive for men and negative for women. Divorced or widowed men lose their “marriage premium”. Finally, having children at home has a negative effect on both men and women—almost at the same magnitude.

5 Unemployment as a function of the business cycle

To determine whether unemployment of young workers is caused by the business cycle, we examined the unemployment figures in 34 OECD countries in 2007–2009, years of economic crisis, and in 2009–2011, years of recovery and economic growth. For each country, we considered the data on unemployment among young workers (15–24) and older adults (55–64) and calculated the difference between 2009 and 2007 and between 2011 and 2009 for both groups. The data were taken from OECD publications and included information about the growth rates from 2007 to 2011. Our assessment of unemployment rates in 34 OECD countries reveals that the average rate of youth unemployment in 2007 was 13.4%, compared to 18.9% in 2011, so the delta of youth unemployment before and after the economic crisis was 5.55. The average rate of adult unemployment in 2007 was 4% compared to 5.8% in 2011, so the delta for adults was 1.88. Both of the differences are significantly different from zero, and the delta for young people is significantly larger than the delta for adults. These results indicate that among young people (15–24), the increase in unemployment due to the crisis was very large.

An OLS model of the reduced form was estimated to determine whether unemployment is a function of the business cycle, which is represented by the growth rate. The variables GR2007, GR2009 and GR2011 are the rate of GDP growth in 2007, 2009 and 2011 respectively ( Appendix ). The explanatory variable is either GR2009 minus GR2007 or GR2011 minus GR2009. In both periods, 2007–2009 and 2009–2011, the coefficient of the change in growth rates is negative and significant for young people, but insignificant for adults. Thus, it seems that the unemployment rates of young people are affected by the business cycle, but those of older workers are not. In a time of recession (2007–2009), unemployment among young individuals increases whereas for older individuals the increase in unemployment is not significant. In recovery periods (2009–2011), unemployment among young individuals declines, whereas the drop in unemployment among older individuals is not significant (Table  4 ).

6 Summary and conclusions

The purpose of this paper was to show that while the unemployment rates of young workers are higher than those of older workers, the data alone do not necessarily tell the whole story. Our findings confirm our first hypothesis, that the high unemployment rate of young people stems mainly from the characteristics of the labor market and less from their personal attributes. Using data from Israel and 34 OECD countries, we demonstrated that a country’s growth rate is the main factor that determines youth unemployment. However, the GDP rate of growth cannot explain adult unemployment. Our results also support our second hypothesis, that the difficulties faced by unemployed older workers when searching for a job are more a function of their age than the overall business environment.

Indeed, one limitation of the study is the fact that we could not follow individuals over time and capture individual changes. We analyze a sample of those who have been unemployed in the previous year and then analyze the probability of being employed in the subsequent year but cannot take into account people could have found a job in between which they already lost again. Yet, in this sample we could isolate and analyze those who did not work last year and look at their employment status in the present. By doing so, we found out that the rate of those who found a job declines with age, and that the difficulties faced by unemployed older workers stems mainly from their age.

To solve both of these problems, youth unemployment and older workers unemployment, countries need to adopt different methods. Creating more jobs will help young people enter the labor market. Creating differential levels for the minimum wage and supplementing the income of older workers with earned income tax credits will help older people re-enter the job market.

Further research may explore the effect of structural and institutional differences which can also determine individual unemployment vs. employment among different age groups.

In addition to presenting a theory about the factors that affect the differences in employment opportunities for young people and those over 45, the main contribution of this paper is demonstrating the validity of our contention that it is age specifically that works to keep older people out of the job market, whereas it is the business cycle that has a deleterious effect on the job prospects of younger people. Given these differences, these two sectors of unemployment require different approaches for solving their employment problems. The common wisdom maintains that the high level of youth unemployment requires policy makers to focus on programs targeting younger unemployed individuals. However, we argue that given the results of our study, policy makers must adopt two different strategies to dealing with unemployment in these two groups.

6.1 Policy implications

In order to cope with the problem of youth unemployment, we must create more jobs. When the recession ends in Portugal and Spain, the problem of youth unemployment should be alleviated. Since there is no discrimination against young people—evidenced by the fact that when the aggregate level of economic activity and the level of adult employment are high, youth employment is also high—creating more jobs in general by enhancing economic growth should improve the employment rates of young workers.

In contrast, the issue of adult unemployment requires a different solution due to the fact that their chances of finding a job are related specifically to their age. One solution might be a differential minimum wage for older and younger individuals and earned income tax credits (EITC) Footnote 9 for older individuals, as Malul and Luski ( 2009 ) suggested.

According to this solution, the government should reduce the minimum wage for older individuals. As a complementary policy and in order to avoid differences in wages between older and younger individuals, the former would receive an earned income tax credit so that their minimum wage together with their EITC would be equal to the minimum wage of younger individuals. Earned income tax credits could increase employment among older workers while increasing their income. For older workers, EITCs are more effective than a minimum wage both in terms of employment and income. Such policies of a differential minimum wage plus an EITC can help older adults and constitute a kind of social safety net for them. Imposing a higher minimum wage exclusively for younger individuals may be beneficial in encouraging them to seek more education.

Young workers who face layoffs as a result of their high minimum wage (Kalenkoski and Lacombe 2008 ) may choose to increase their investment in their human capital (Nawakitphaitoon 2014 ). The ability of young workers to improve their professional level protects them against the unemployment that might result from a higher minimum wage (Malul and Luski 2009 ). For older workers, if the minimum wage is higher than their productivity, they will be unemployed. This will be true even if their productivity is higher than the value of their leisure. Such a situation might result in an inefficient allocation between work and leisure for this group. One way to fix this inefficient allocation without reducing the wages of older individuals is to use the EITC, which is actually a subsidy for this group. This social policy might prompt employers to substitute older workers with a lower minimum wage for more expensive younger workers, making it possible for traditional factories to continue their domestic production. However, a necessary condition for this suggestion to work is the availability of efficient systems of training and learning. Axelrad et al. ( 2013 ) provided another justification for subsidizing the work of older individuals. They found that stereotypes about older workers might lead to a distorted allocation of the labor force. Subsidizing the work of older workers might correct this distortion. Ultimately, however, policy makers must understand that they must implement two different approaches to dealing with the problems of unemployment among young people and in the older population.

For example, in the US, the UK and Portugal, we witnessed higher rates of growth during late 1990 s and lower rates of youth unemployment compared to 2011.

Bank of Israel Annual Report—2013, http://www.boi.org.il/en/NewsAndPublications/RegularPublications/Research%20Department%20Publications/BankIsraelAnnualReport/Annual%20Report-2013/p5-2013e.pdf .

http://www.boi.org.il/en/NewsAndPublications/RegularPublications/Research%20Department%20Publications/RecentEconomicDevelopments/develop136e.pdf .

The Labor Force Survey is a major survey conducted by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics among households nationwide. The survey follows the development of the labor force in Israel, its size and characteristics, as well as the extent of unemployment and other trends. The publication contains detailed data on labor force characteristics such as their age, years of schooling, type of school last attended, and immigration status. It is also a source of information on living conditions, mobility in employment, and many other topics.

The survey population is the permanent (de jure) population of Israel aged 15 and over. For more details see: http://www.cbs.gov.il/publications13/1504/pdf/intro04_e.pdf .

When we looked at those who had not managed to find a job at the time of the survey, we included all individuals who were not working, regardless of whether they were discouraged workers, volunteers or had other reasons. As long as they are not out of the labor force due to medical reasons or their mandatory military service, we classified them as "did not manage to find a job."

Until 2012, active soldiers were considered outside the labor force in the samples of the CBS.

EITC is a refundable tax credit for low to moderate income working individuals and couples.

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Authors’ contributions

HA, MM and IL conceptualized and designed the study. HA collected and managed study data, HA and IL carried out statistical analyses. HA drafted the initial manuscript. MM and IL reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Hila Axelrad

The School of Social and Policy Studies, The Faculty of Social Sciences, Tel Aviv University, P.O. Box 39040, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel

Department of Public Policy & Administration, Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business & Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

Department of Economics, The Western Galilee College, Akko, Israel

Israel Luski

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Axelrad, H., Malul, M. & Luski, I. Unemployment among younger and older individuals: does conventional data about unemployment tell us the whole story?. J Labour Market Res 52 , 3 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12651-018-0237-9

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• Unemployment
• Older workers

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Undoing the Stigma of Unemployment

W ith the looming 2024 elections in mind, one of the most discussed puzzles of our time is why Americans report feeling economically anxious despite a low unemployment rate, declining inflation, and other positive economic indicators. My research on American workers points to one of the root causes of this anxiety. It focuses on the kind of workers we might expect to have little to worry about—experienced, college-educated, white-collar professionals—including some with advanced degrees from elite universities like Harvard and MIT. Focusing on this group reveals that in the contemporary United States the careers of even the most privileged workers are anxiety-filled and precarious.

Regardless of prestigious degrees and impressive work experience, the careers of almost all American workers are made unpredictable by routine layoffs. It was not always like this. In the post-World War II era white-collar workers at large companies could reasonably expect to stay at one company for decades. But since the 1980s job security has crumbled, and currently about 3 out of 4 American workers become unemployed at some point in their career.

Yet, economic anxiety extends beyond mere layoffs. It is foremost rooted in the fear of not being able to bounce back after a layoff, and getting trapped in long-term unemployment or low-wage work. This fear is well-founded, even for experienced college-educated professionals. A 2013 study by the Economic Policy Institute reveals that if a college-educated worker becomes unemployed they are as likely as any other worker—of whatever level of education—to get trapped in long-term unemployment. Even after a prolonged search, many get stuck in low-wage jobs. Downward mobility does not show up in unemployment statistics, but it shatters lives.

American workers are anxious because anyone can fall. There are no reliable shields against an invisible but powerful force which can rapidly erase past educational and professional achievements: stigma. Once a worker becomes unemployed they are stigmatized in the eyes of potential employers. This can be clearly seen in studies where researchers send fake resumes to companies with real job openings. These resumes are identical in terms of skills and qualifications and differ only in whether or not the applicant has a current employment gap. From these studies, we know that employers are far less likely to invite unemployed applicants for job interviews.

Read More: The U.S. Spends Less Than Nearly Every Country on Unemployment. That’s Why People Can’t Get Jobs.

I interviewed recruiters to gain a better understanding of the unemployment stigma. After assuring them that they will remain anonymous, the recruiters openly discussed the widely shared assumptions of employers about unemployed applicants. One recruiter explained: “A company could lay off people for a wide variety of reasons. But there is that perception that very often those folks who have been laid off or out of work for any length of time are not going to be the top people out there.” In practice, this perception often translates to an employer preference for “passive jobseekers,” referring to workers currently working and not actively looking for work; or in other words, workers who are not unemployed. Here is how one recruiter succinctly summed up the widely shared sentiment underlying the preference for passive jobseekers: “The sense is that if someone is good, they would be working.” When reflecting on it, this recruiter acknowledged that “this logic is crap,” recalling his own experience: “I was a top-performer and the whole group was laid off.” But, nonetheless, even this recruiter who recognized employers’ flawed logic, felt compelled to follow the preference of his employer clients for passive jobseekers.

It is not only employers who stigmatize. As the unemployed workers I’ve interviewed in the course of my research repeatedly emphasized, they experienced the unemployment stigma in every realm of their life, including when trying to network with former colleagues, or even when turning to their spouses or close friends for support. 

The stigma of unemployment is everywhere because most of us want to believe in the myth of meritocracy—the false assumption that one’s position reflects one’s merit. The pull of this myth is evident whenever I share stories from my research. Take for example the story of Ron, one of the people I interviewed. Ron is a Harvard graduate who worked in finance for over three decades, most recently at a large and prestigious bank. After a layoff he spent three years unsuccessfully trying to get another job in banking. Today, Ron earns poverty-level wages at a department store.

When I share Ron’s story, I am inevitably asked for more details about his particular situation. A story like Ron’s is terrifying to all who hear it because if his career can go off a cliff, so can anyone’s. The thread connecting the various questions is the search for something faulty about Ron, which would reduce the anxiety of the person asking the questions about whether the same fate may await them. I am almost never asked about the hiring process or employer stigmas that may underlie Ron’s difficulties.

The questions’ focus on finding something faulty about Ron show how tenaciously we want to hold on to the belief in meritocratic predictability, that if you do the “right” things, study hard, go to a good college, and get a good job, you’ll do okay. But the dark flipside of this belief is the stigmatization of those who experience unemployment or downward mobility. Hanging on to this belief motivates us to find some reason why the unemployed are at fault for their unemployment, and hence we lead with skeptical questions—which mirror those of employers—about the talent or motivation of anyone who is out of work or has experienced downward mobility.

Ironically, while we cling to the myth of a predictable meritocracy as a way of coping with our anxiety, the myth leaves in place institutions and employer practices that guarantee our perpetual anxiety. The myth of meritocracy means that we judge and stigmatize each other, even our friends and loved ones, instead of providing empathetic support. It means that we blame individuals for what are societal shortcomings, and these shortcomings remain untouched. And ultimately, it means we remain trapped in an economic system in which we are all one layoff away from potential disaster. 

The way out of this trap is to confront it head on and shine a bright light on the assumption that unemployment necessarily reflects anything about the unemployed person as opposed to the economy, employers, and the hiring system. Until we do so, we will continue to experience perpetual economic anxiety, regardless of topline economic indicators.

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A Crisis of Long-Term Unemployment Is Looming in the U.S.

• Ofer Sharone

How biases trap qualified job seekers in a cycle of rejection — and how to help them break free.

The stigma of long-term unemployment can be profound and long-lasting. As the United States eases out of the Covid-19 pandemic, it needs better approaches to LTU compared to the Great Recession. But research shows that stubborn biases among hiring managers can make the lived experiences of jobseekers distressing, leading to a vicious cycle of diminished emotional well-being that can make it all but impossible to land a role. Instead of sticking with the standard ways of helping the LTU, however, a pilot program that uses a wider, sociologically-oriented lens can help jobseekers understand that their inability to land a gig isn’t their fault. This can help people go easier on themselves which, ultimately, can make it more likely that they’ll find a new position.

Covid-19 has ravaged employment in the United States, from temporary furloughs to outright layoffs. Currently, over 4 million Americans have been out of work for six months or more , including an estimated 1.5 million workers in white-collar occupations, according to my calculations. Though the overall unemployment rate is down from its peak last spring, the percent of the unemployed who are long-term unemployed (LTU) keeps increasing and is currently at over 40%, a level of LTU comparable to the Great Recession but otherwise unseen in the U.S. in over 60 years.

• Ofer Sharone is an expert on long-term unemployment and the author of the book Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences (University of Chicago Press). Sharone received his PhD in sociology from the University of California Berkeley, his JD from Harvard Law School, and is currently an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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Questions to Address Youth Unemployment

We need to spur fresh thinking in this field even as we test and evaluate diverse approaches that promote youth economic empowerment in developing countries.

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By Reeta Roy Sep. 14, 2010

Next week, more than 300 people will convene at the Global Youth Enterprise & Livelihoods Development Conference in Washington, DC. I will be joining several of our partners, other funders, international NGOs, and youth innovators to discuss tough questions and promising solutions related to employment and entrepreneurship for young people. 

Approximately 1.3 billion young people between the ages of 12 and 24 live in developing countries. The pace of economic growth in many of these countries will be insufficient to create the 1 billion jobs needed over the next decade as youth transition into the workforce. And while there is an increase in basic education levels, millions of young people in developing countries still face bleak employment opportunities. Young women have even higher rates of unemployment and face additional systemic, social and cultural barriers.

Thus, there is an urgent need for new approaches to create economic opportunities for young people.  If successful, the effects of youth employment and productivity will have inter-generational impact with multiplier effects from wealth creation and growth to social stability and new leadership.

This requires a continuum of interventions that equip young people to change their own lives. Access to education, knowledge, skills, social networks and capital are the building blocks of this change.  How do we enable young people to stay in school and complete their secondary education?  Is micro-franchising a potential solution to entrepreneurship and job creation? How do we expand technology applications to equip young people with employability skills and connect them to ideas, mentors and resources? What’s required to encourage financial institutions to sustainably offer youth-inclusive financial education and services to enable young people to save money, build assets and manage financial resources for their education or to start a business?

Are you enjoying this article? Read more like this, plus SSIR's full archive of content, when you subscribe .

We need to spur fresh thinking in this field even as we test and evaluate diverse approaches that promote youth economic empowerment in developing countries, particularly in Africa. We have much work ahead of us to generate approaches that work at scale.

We believe that the most compelling ideas will come from those with the greatest stake in finding solutions—young people themselves.  We’ve already seen an explosion of activities by young people around the world to tackle questions facing them, and we would like to tap into this innovation.  As funders and practitioners, we need ways to engage young people in identifying needs, developing solutions and delivering them in ways that are trusted and accessible by youth and their families. 

Support  SSIR ’s coverage of cross-sector solutions to global challenges.  Help us further the reach of innovative ideas.  Donate today .

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AP, IB, and College Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Principles 

6 questions about unemployment and the labor force

Unemployment.

Updated 10/29/2021 Jacob Reed 1. What does it mean to be unemployed?

The unemployment rate is one of the most watched and publicized labor force statistics, but many people are confused about what it actually measures. The unemployment rate is the percentage of people in the labor force who are not working, but are actively looking for work.  As of the writing of this article, the official (U-3) unemployment rate was 4.0% (see the  BLS for the current unemployment rate ).

The formula for the unemployment rate is: Unemployed/Labor Force x 100 = Unemployment Rate

2. Who is not counted in the unemployment rate?

The official unemployment rate (U-3) does not count people who are not actively looking for work. As a result, there may be some workers who recently lost their jobs and want jobs, but aren’t actively looking. These people are considered out of the labor force. There are also some people who lost their jobs a long time ago but have given up looking for work within the last 12 months. These are called discouraged workers and they are also considered out of the labor force so they are not reflected in the official unemployment rate.  Also, underemployed members of the labor force who have part-time jobs but are looking for full time jobs are counted as employed. For all of these reasons, the official unemployment rate may not always reflect an accurate picture of the overall labor market. The bureau of labor statistics does track all of these groups and includes them in the U-6 measure of unemployment. As of the writing of this article, the U-6 rate was 8.1% (see the  BLS for the current rate ).

3. Who is in the labor force? The labor force includes civilian citizens who are at least 16 years of age and are either employed or actively looking for work. To be considered employed, a person must work for pay or profit for one or more hours in the given week,  work without pay in a family business for 15 or more hours, or have a job but didn’t work due to vacation, illness, labor dispute, etc. After a recession, the unemployment rate may fall if unemployed workers leave the workforce. This lowers the unemployment rate and can give a false sense that the labor market has improved.

The formula for the labor force is:

Working + Looking for Work = Labor Force

4. What is the labor force participation rate?

The labor force participation rate is the percentage the working age population that is either working or looking for work. The formula is:

[(Working + Looking for Work)/Working Age Civilian Population] x 100 = Labor Force Participation Rate

The labor force participation rate in the United States fell during the last recession as some citizens lost their jobs and gave up looking for work. As the economy has improved the labor force participation rate is rising again, but it has not recovered back to pre recession levels.  As of the writing of this article, the labor force participation rate in the US was 63.2% (see the  BLS for the current rate ). This statistic gives economists a sense of how many people are choosing to be part of an economy’s labor force. A higher participation rate will shift the  production possibilities curve  outward. A lower participation rate will shift it inward. 

5. What types of unemployment are there?

Seasonal Unemployment:  This type of unemployment is often not discussed on many macroeconomics exams because the official unemployment rate is seasonally adjusted; meaning seasonal unemployment has been deleted out of the statistic. Seasonal unemployment occurs when workers lose their jobs due to the time of year. Lifeguards getting laid off in the winter and temporary store retail clerks getting laid off after the holiday shopping season are two examples. Seasonal unemployment is a natural part of a healthy economy.

Frictional Unemployment:  This type of unemployment is characterized by movement between jobs. When a college graduate is looking for her first job, a cook quits his restaurant job, or a brick mason is fired from construction company, all three of these people are now frictionally unemployed. Frictional unemployment is a natural part of a healthy economy.

Structural Unemployment:  This type of unemployment is most often characterized by a skills mismatch; meaning the skills unemployed workers have do not match the skills needed for the jobs available. These workers must go back to school or be retrained to get the skills they need. This type of unemployment can be caused by technological changes like ATM machines replacing banking tellers.  Structural unemployment is also a natural part of a healthy economy as well. As the economy changes, some structural unemployment is inevitable.

Cyclical Unemployment:  This is unemployment caused by the business cycle. People unemployed as a result of the great depression of the 1930’s and the recent great recession were cyclically unemployed. Cyclical unemployment is characterized by an overall downturn in the economy. A recessionary gap in the  AS/AD model  is an indication of cyclical unemployment. 

6. What is full employment (or the natural rate of unemployment)? Full employment is defined as zero cyclical unemployment; or when the unemployment rate equals frictional unemployment plus structural unemployment (seasonal unemployment is already deleted from official numbers). When the economy is at full employment the unemployment rate will equal what is called the natural rate of unemployment (NRU). This occurs when an economy is at long-run equilibrium in the  AS/AD model  and there is no inflationary or recessionary gap. As of the writing of this article, the long run natural rate of unemployment, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, was 4.55% (see the  St. Louis Fed for current estimates ).

Up Next:  Content Review Page:   Production Possibilities Curve

 Outside Resources:  mjmfoodie  (definition of unemployment),  mjmfoodie  (types of unemployment)

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I would like to acknowledge the work of Dick Brunelle and Steven Reff from Reffonomics.com whose work inspired many of the review games on this site. I would also like to thank Francis McMann, James Chasey, and Steven Reff who taught me how to be an effective AP Economics teacher at AP summer institutes; as well as the countless high school teachers, and college professors from the AP readings, economics Facebook groups, and #econtwitter. 

Three questions for the labor market’s near future

Subscribe to the brookings metro update, makada henry-nickie , makada henry-nickie executive director - jpmorgan chase & co, former nonresident fellow - governance studies anthony barr , and anthony barr senior research assistant - brookings metro regina seo regina seo senior research associate.

June 17, 2022

In the past two months, the U.S. economy has added a total of 826,000 jobs, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers for May and upwardly revised numbers for April. During that same period, overall unemployment has held steady at 3.6%. Black unemployment is still almost double that (at 5.9% in April and 6.2% in May), but the Black labor force participation rate has increased, as has the overall number of Black workers currently employed.  

Despite solid job gains, inflation has reached a  41-year high of 8.6% , and households are reeling from unrelenting increases in the price of gas, rent, and food. June’s preliminary Index of Consumer Sentiment  plummeted 8 points from May, to 50.2 —the lowest rate since the 1980 recession, revealing that households are deeply worried about their financial circumstances.  

In this blog, we highlight three key economic concerns for the summer, including women leaving the labor force, economic contraction erasing job gains by Black workers, and the heightened risk of food insecurity.  

Will more women leave the workforce this summer than usual?  

In the past three months, 465,000 women aged 20 and over have entered the labor force. In May alone, 397,000 women entered the workforce, 44% of whom were Black. This surge of women into the workforce is helping regain jobs lost during the pandemic, but labor force participation rates for women—including white, Black, and Latino or Hispanic women—are still below pre-pandemic levels.   

Despite the recovering trend in women’s employment, research by the National Women’s Law Center found that almost one-third of the jobs women regained since the start of the pandemic are in the leisure and hospitality sector—a finding consistent with our prior analysis on recent job creation . These jobs are low-paying, have volatile schedules, and are vulnerable to economic downturns.  

In addition, female labor force participation typically drops every summer as school closings push many mothers to reduce hours or quit their jobs. A recent paper found an average summer drop of 1.1% in the employment-to-population ratio among prime-age women. This drop is pronounced among mothers of school-age children who do not have affordable or reliable access to child care. The ongoing pandemic will likely continue to exacerbate this cyclical trend, consistent with our prior research , including our recent survey data revealing that child care concerns and inflexible work schedules continue to hurt female workers.  

Will economic anxieties erase gains for Black workers?  

Runaway inflation pushed the Federal Reserve to adopt a 75-point interest rate hike at its June meeting to regain the confidence of investors. If the Fed follows the recommendation of some commentators to induce a 1980s-style recession through a series of steep interest rate hikes in order to reduce consumer spending and stabilize prices, Black workers will bear the brunt as companies downsize—just as they did in 1983, when the unemployment rate reached 20% for Black men and 16.7% for Black women .  

But even if the Fed remains a stabilizing force for the broader economy, the market itself may not remain calm. Major companies such as Redfin, Twitter, and Coinbase have rescinded job offers , while several leading tech companies such as Robinhood and Netflix have announced layoffs as a cost-saving strategy . But if industry leaders and investors take this as a broader signal and panic based on negative feelings about the current economy, it could create a ripple effect of fear across sectors and lead to layoffs and a recession.  

Another worrying indicator is that BLS’ broader measure of labor market weakness, the U-6 unemployment rate, rose to 7.1% in May , driven by frictional unemployment and a 295,000-person increase in part-time workers . This coincided with the retail sector shedding 51,700 jobs . Major retailers have noted that cutbacks in household spending left them with bloated inventories ; for example, Target cut profit expectations twice in a single month and surprised investors with a mass sales campaign aimed at trimming inventory. This is a leading indicator that the sector will shed additional jobs. Additionally, big-box retail chains, including Amazon, hired more workers than normally needed to avoid hiring delays and COVID-19 illness disruptions amid the tight labor market. But Walmart’s CEO recently explained that this strategy has led to overstaffing concerns —suggesting that even without diminished spending, job cuts will continue.  

All of this bodes poorly for Black workers, particularly Black men. In the past three months, Black men have gained 56,000 jobs , and their current labor force participation rate of 68.9% is now higher than it was prior to the pandemic. While some of these job gains reflect a slight uptick in the number of Black men entering the labor force, most represent men who had previously been in the labor force and have now been rehired. As Figure 2 shows, Black men only benefited from the labor market recovery at the tail end of it.   

Even a slight economic contraction could imperil these recent job gains for Black workers, especially workers crowded into low-wage cyclical sectors like retail. The current labor market—in which there are more job openings than there are job seekers—has pushed firms to tap into Black talent that they would otherwise overlook due to discrimination. But if the labor market weakens, additional Black workers will be less likely to be hired, and Black workers who were recently hired will be among the first to be let go during layoffs.  

Will depleted savings and the end of the school year heighten food insecurity?  

As household savings are quickly depleted due to inflation, the risk of food insecurity is heightened. In April, the personal savings rate for Americans hit a low of 4.4% (compared to 33.8% in April 2020 and 12.6% in April 2021). At the same time, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s Consumer Credit report , revolving debt (such as credit card debt) increased by an annualized rate of 19.6%, while non-revolving debt (such as car loans and mortgage loans) rose at a slower rate of 7.1%. Overall household debt increased at an annual rate of 8.3% in the first quarter of 2022. Taken together, these metrics suggest that inflation is making it harder for families to sustain current levels of consumption while also putting money away, even as they face markedly lower savings to pay for necessities.  

It is likely that without the advanced Child Tax Credit payments or any other form of income stimulus, many low-income families will face a harsh summer. Low-income parents are caught in an impending storm of precarious retail jobs, over-representation in part-time jobs, and a weakened child care economy. This is especially true for families with school-aged children who benefited from free meals during the school year.  

Even a ‘soft landing’ poses economic risks  

In the last few months, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has told reporters that he believes the Federal Reserve can engineer a “soft landing” —in other words, curbing inflation without throwing the economy into freefall. But even if the Fed can pull this off, it will not fully address the three concerns we identified in this piece.  

Beyond the Fed’s monetary policy actions, we need robust fiscal policies such as stronger unemployment insurance and a renewed monthly Child Tax Credit to ensure no one will slip through the cracks. Ultimately, responding to food and housing needs will require a collaborative effort from the federal government, states, philanthropy, and local community-based organizations to support vulnerable families in the coming months.  

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• Writing Strong Research Questions | Criteria & Examples

Writing Strong Research Questions | Criteria & Examples

Published on October 26, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A research question pinpoints exactly what you want to find out in your work. A good research question is essential to guide your research paper , dissertation , or thesis .

All research questions should be:

• Focused on a single problem or issue
• Researchable using primary and/or secondary sources
• Feasible to answer within the timeframe and practical constraints
• Specific enough to answer thoroughly
• Complex enough to develop the answer over the space of a paper or thesis
• Relevant to your field of study and/or society more broadly

Table of contents

How to write a research question, what makes a strong research question, using sub-questions to strengthen your main research question, research questions quiz, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research questions.

You can follow these steps to develop a strong research question:

• Choose your topic
• Do some preliminary reading about the current state of the field
• Narrow your focus to a specific niche
• Identify the research problem that you will address

The way you frame your question depends on what your research aims to achieve. The table below shows some examples of how you might formulate questions for different purposes.

Using your research problem to develop your research question

Note that while most research questions can be answered with various types of research , the way you frame your question should help determine your choices.

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Research questions anchor your whole project, so it’s important to spend some time refining them. The criteria below can help you evaluate the strength of your research question.

Focused and researchable

Feasible and specific

Complex and arguable

Relevant and original

Chances are that your main research question likely can’t be answered all at once. That’s why sub-questions are important: they allow you to answer your main question in a step-by-step manner.

Good sub-questions should be:

• Less complex than the main question
• Focused only on 1 type of research
• Presented in a logical order

Here are a few examples of descriptive and framing questions:

• Descriptive: According to current government arguments, how should a European bank tax be implemented?
• Descriptive: Which countries have a bank tax/levy on financial transactions?
• Framing: How should a bank tax/levy on financial transactions look at a European level?

Keep in mind that sub-questions are by no means mandatory. They should only be asked if you need the findings to answer your main question. If your main question is simple enough to stand on its own, it’s okay to skip the sub-question part. As a rule of thumb, the more complex your subject, the more sub-questions you’ll need.

Try to limit yourself to 4 or 5 sub-questions, maximum. If you feel you need more than this, it may be indication that your main research question is not sufficiently specific. In this case, it’s is better to revisit your problem statement and try to tighten your main question up.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

The way you present your research problem in your introduction varies depending on the nature of your research paper . A research paper that presents a sustained argument will usually encapsulate this argument in a thesis statement .

A research paper designed to present the results of empirical research tends to present a research question that it seeks to answer. It may also include a hypothesis —a prediction that will be confirmed or disproved by your research.

As you cannot possibly read every source related to your topic, it’s important to evaluate sources to assess their relevance. Use preliminary evaluation to determine whether a source is worth examining in more depth.

This involves:

• Reading abstracts , prefaces, introductions , and conclusions
• Looking at the table of contents to determine the scope of the work
• Consulting the index for key terms or the names of important scholars

A research hypothesis is your proposed answer to your research question. The research hypothesis usually includes an explanation (“ x affects y because …”).

A statistical hypothesis, on the other hand, is a mathematical statement about a population parameter. Statistical hypotheses always come in pairs: the null and alternative hypotheses . In a well-designed study , the statistical hypotheses correspond logically to the research hypothesis.

Formulating a main research question can be a difficult task. Overall, your question should contribute to solving the problem that you have defined in your problem statement .

However, it should also fulfill criteria in three main areas:

• Researchability
• Feasibility and specificity
• Relevance and originality

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113 Great Research Paper Topics

General Education

One of the hardest parts of writing a research paper can be just finding a good topic to write about. Fortunately we've done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 113 interesting research paper topics. They've been organized into ten categories and cover a wide range of subjects so you can easily find the best topic for you.

In addition to the list of good research topics, we've included advice on what makes a good research paper topic and how you can use your topic to start writing a great paper.

What Makes a Good Research Paper Topic?

Not all research paper topics are created equal, and you want to make sure you choose a great topic before you start writing. Below are the three most important factors to consider to make sure you choose the best research paper topics.

#1: It's Something You're Interested In

A paper is always easier to write if you're interested in the topic, and you'll be more motivated to do in-depth research and write a paper that really covers the entire subject. Even if a certain research paper topic is getting a lot of buzz right now or other people seem interested in writing about it, don't feel tempted to make it your topic unless you genuinely have some sort of interest in it as well.

#2: There's Enough Information to Write a Paper

Even if you come up with the absolute best research paper topic and you're so excited to write about it, you won't be able to produce a good paper if there isn't enough research about the topic. This can happen for very specific or specialized topics, as well as topics that are too new to have enough research done on them at the moment. Easy research paper topics will always be topics with enough information to write a full-length paper.

Trying to write a research paper on a topic that doesn't have much research on it is incredibly hard, so before you decide on a topic, do a bit of preliminary searching and make sure you'll have all the information you need to write your paper.

#3: It Fits Your Teacher's Guidelines

Don't get so carried away looking at lists of research paper topics that you forget any requirements or restrictions your teacher may have put on research topic ideas. If you're writing a research paper on a health-related topic, deciding to write about the impact of rap on the music scene probably won't be allowed, but there may be some sort of leeway. For example, if you're really interested in current events but your teacher wants you to write a research paper on a history topic, you may be able to choose a topic that fits both categories, like exploring the relationship between the US and North Korea. No matter what, always get your research paper topic approved by your teacher first before you begin writing.

113 Good Research Paper Topics

Below are 113 good research topics to help you get you started on your paper. We've organized them into ten categories to make it easier to find the type of research paper topics you're looking for.

Arts/Culture

• Discuss the main differences in art from the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance .
• Analyze the impact a famous artist had on the world.
• How is sexism portrayed in different types of media (music, film, video games, etc.)? Has the amount/type of sexism changed over the years?
• How has the music of slaves brought over from Africa shaped modern American music?
• How has rap music evolved in the past decade?
• How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

Current Events

• What have been the impacts of China's one child policy?
• How have the goals of feminists changed over the decades?
• How has the Trump presidency changed international relations?
• Analyze the history of the relationship between the United States and North Korea.
• What factors contributed to the current decline in the rate of unemployment?
• What have been the impacts of states which have increased their minimum wage?
• How do US immigration laws compare to immigration laws of other countries?
• How have the US's immigration laws changed in the past few years/decades?
• How has the Black Lives Matter movement affected discussions and view about racism in the US?
• What impact has the Affordable Care Act had on healthcare in the US?
• What factors contributed to the UK deciding to leave the EU (Brexit)?
• What factors contributed to China becoming an economic power?
• Discuss the history of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies  (some of which tokenize the S&P 500 Index on the blockchain) .
• Do students in schools that eliminate grades do better in college and their careers?
• Do students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests?
• Do students who receive free meals at school get higher grades compared to when they weren't receiving a free meal?
• Do students who attend charter schools score higher on standardized tests than students in public schools?
• Do students learn better in same-sex classrooms?
• How does giving each student access to an iPad or laptop affect their studies?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Montessori Method ?
• Do children who attend preschool do better in school later on?
• What was the impact of the No Child Left Behind act?
• How does the US education system compare to education systems in other countries?
• What impact does mandatory physical education classes have on students' health?
• Which methods are most effective at reducing bullying in schools?
• Do homeschoolers who attend college do as well as students who attended traditional schools?
• Does offering tenure increase or decrease quality of teaching?
• How does college debt affect future life choices of students?
• Should graduate students be able to form unions?

• What are different ways to lower gun-related deaths in the US?
• How and why have divorce rates changed over time?
• Is affirmative action still necessary in education and/or the workplace?
• Should physician-assisted suicide be legal?
• How has stem cell research impacted the medical field?
• How can human trafficking be reduced in the United States/world?
• Should people be able to donate organs in exchange for money?
• Which types of juvenile punishment have proven most effective at preventing future crimes?
• Has the increase in US airport security made passengers safer?
• Analyze the immigration policies of certain countries and how they are similar and different from one another.
• Several states have legalized recreational marijuana. What positive and negative impacts have they experienced as a result?
• Do tariffs increase the number of domestic jobs?
• Which prison reforms have proven most effective?
• Should governments be able to censor certain information on the internet?
• Which methods/programs have been most effective at reducing teen pregnancy?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Keto diet?
• How effective are different exercise regimes for losing weight and maintaining weight loss?
• How do the healthcare plans of various countries differ from each other?
• What are the most effective ways to treat depression ?
• What are the pros and cons of genetically modified foods?
• Which methods are most effective for improving memory?
• What can be done to lower healthcare costs in the US?
• What factors contributed to the current opioid crisis?
• Analyze the history and impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic .
• Are low-carbohydrate or low-fat diets more effective for weight loss?
• How much exercise should the average adult be getting each week?
• Which methods are most effective to get parents to vaccinate their children?
• What are the pros and cons of clean needle programs?
• How does stress affect the body?
• Discuss the history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
• What were the causes and effects of the Salem Witch Trials?
• Who was responsible for the Iran-Contra situation?
• How has New Orleans and the government's response to natural disasters changed since Hurricane Katrina?
• What events led to the fall of the Roman Empire?
• What were the impacts of British rule in India ?
• Was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki necessary?
• What were the successes and failures of the women's suffrage movement in the United States?
• What were the causes of the Civil War?
• How did Abraham Lincoln's assassination impact the country and reconstruction after the Civil War?
• Which factors contributed to the colonies winning the American Revolution?
• What caused Hitler's rise to power?
• Discuss how a specific invention impacted history.
• What led to Cleopatra's fall as ruler of Egypt?
• How has Japan changed and evolved over the centuries?
• What were the causes of the Rwandan genocide ?

• Why did Martin Luther decide to split with the Catholic Church?
• Analyze the history and impact of a well-known cult (Jonestown, Manson family, etc.)
• How did the sexual abuse scandal impact how people view the Catholic Church?
• How has the Catholic church's power changed over the past decades/centuries?
• What are the causes behind the rise in atheism/ agnosticism in the United States?
• What were the influences in Siddhartha's life resulted in him becoming the Buddha?
• How has media portrayal of Islam/Muslims changed since September 11th?

Science/Environment

• How has the earth's climate changed in the past few decades?
• How has the use and elimination of DDT affected bird populations in the US?
• Analyze how the number and severity of natural disasters have increased in the past few decades.
• Analyze deforestation rates in a certain area or globally over a period of time.
• How have past oil spills changed regulations and cleanup methods?
• How has the Flint water crisis changed water regulation safety?
• What are the pros and cons of fracking?
• What impact has the Paris Climate Agreement had so far?
• What have NASA's biggest successes and failures been?
• How can we improve access to clean water around the world?
• Does ecotourism actually have a positive impact on the environment?
• Should the US rely on nuclear energy more?
• What can be done to save amphibian species currently at risk of extinction?
• What impact has climate change had on coral reefs?
• How are black holes created?
• Are teens who spend more time on social media more likely to suffer anxiety and/or depression?
• How will the loss of net neutrality affect internet users?
• Analyze the history and progress of self-driving vehicles.
• How has the use of drones changed surveillance and warfare methods?
• Has social media made people more or less connected?
• What progress has currently been made with artificial intelligence ?
• Do smartphones increase or decrease workplace productivity?
• What are the most effective ways to use technology in the classroom?
• How is Google search affecting our intelligence?
• When is the best age for a child to begin owning a smartphone?
• Has frequent texting reduced teen literacy rates?

How to Write a Great Research Paper

Even great research paper topics won't give you a great research paper if you don't hone your topic before and during the writing process. Follow these three tips to turn good research paper topics into great papers.

#1: Figure Out Your Thesis Early

Before you start writing a single word of your paper, you first need to know what your thesis will be. Your thesis is a statement that explains what you intend to prove/show in your paper. Every sentence in your research paper will relate back to your thesis, so you don't want to start writing without it!

As some examples, if you're writing a research paper on if students learn better in same-sex classrooms, your thesis might be "Research has shown that elementary-age students in same-sex classrooms score higher on standardized tests and report feeling more comfortable in the classroom."

If you're writing a paper on the causes of the Civil War, your thesis might be "While the dispute between the North and South over slavery is the most well-known cause of the Civil War, other key causes include differences in the economies of the North and South, states' rights, and territorial expansion."

#2: Back Every Statement Up With Research

Remember, this is a research paper you're writing, so you'll need to use lots of research to make your points. Every statement you give must be backed up with research, properly cited the way your teacher requested. You're allowed to include opinions of your own, but they must also be supported by the research you give.

#3: Do Your Research Before You Begin Writing

You don't want to start writing your research paper and then learn that there isn't enough research to back up the points you're making, or, even worse, that the research contradicts the points you're trying to make!

Get most of your research on your good research topics done before you begin writing. Then use the research you've collected to create a rough outline of what your paper will cover and the key points you're going to make. This will help keep your paper clear and organized, and it'll ensure you have enough research to produce a strong paper.

What's Next?

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Want to know the fastest and easiest ways to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius? We've got you covered! Check out our guide to the best ways to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit (or vice versa).

These recommendations are based solely on our knowledge and experience. If you purchase an item through one of our links, PrepScholar may receive a commission.

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Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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• Examples of improved application questions
• Plain language principles

The following are application questions that claimants often find confusing or challenging. Here, review before and after versions of some common initial application questions and learn more about why we made the recommended changes. You can also review our full initial application question bank to see a comprehensive collection of original and revised application questions.  

Employment: asking about "other pay"

Needs improvement: As of your last day of work, were you entitled to or did you receive bonus, commission, vacation, or sick pay?

Better: Did you get any other types of payments from your employer after you stopped working for them?

If claimant selects YES, they will be routed to a question that asks them to indicate the type(s) of other pay they received, which can also include checkboxes with the various types of other pay

Claimants may be more likely to think about "other types of payments" (in other words, any sort of money received from a former employer) rather than specific payment types, as called out in the original wording of the question.

Principles used: Plain language, mental model, brevity, one-concept question, tone

Employment: Reason for separation

Needs improvement: Please select the reason for separation.

Better : Why did your job end or your hours change?

"Reason for separation" is not a phrase most claimants would use and isn't how claimants think about no longer working for their employer. The rewritten version of the question uses language that claimants are likelier to use. In addition, claimants may not know that they could be eligible for UI benefits if their hours are reduced; this rephrased question includes mention of a reduction in hours as one possible context for eligibility.

Principles used: Mental model, tone, plain language, jargon

Able and available

Needs improvement: Are you able and available for work?

Better:  If you were offered a job, could you start working right away? 

Claimants could be confused by this stacked question, especially if they have different responses to each of the sub-questions (able and available). In addition, claimants may answer inaccurately depending on their interpretation of what "able" and "available" mean. The rephrased version of the question is more straightforward – claimants only have to respond yes or no regarding whether they could start working right away.  

Principles used: One-concept question, general clarity

Disability for UI

Needs improvement: Are you a person with a disability?

Better: Are you a person with a disability? Does this disability prevent you from working? 

If claimant selects YES to the first question, they will be routed to the second question.

The important part of this question isn't whether the claimant has a disability, but rather, whether that disability is preventing them from finding and accepting work. Additionally, the original version of this question may incorrectly assume that claimants with disabilities cannot work.  Clarifying this question acknowledges the fact that people with disabilities are an important part of the workforce.

Principles used: General clarity, inclusiveness

Union membership and status

Needs improvement: Are you a member in good standing of a trade union and do you use a hiring hall to find work?

Better: Are you a member of a union?

If the claimant selects [YES] ask for the union name and number and if they are required to find work through a union hiring hall (a job placement office operated by their union).

Stacked questions (questions that actually contain multiple questions) can be confusing for the claimant, especially if a claimant has different responses to each of the subquestions within the singular question. The revised version of the question provides contextual help to the claimant in the form of a parenthetical definition of a union hiring hall.

Principles used: One-concept question, tone, general clarity, contextual help

Demographics: Race

Needs improvement: What is your race?

The rephrased version of the question allows claimants to indicate all the races they identify with, rather than requiring them to choose only one, which may help claimants more accurately describe their identities.

Principles used: Brevity, inclusiveness

Occupation: Job search

Needs improvement: Please enter the occupation that best matches the goal of your job search in the box below and click "Submit." Then, select the option that most closely matches this occupation.

Add help text below this question explaining why this question is being asked and what the information will be used for

Claimants may find the term "occupation" confusing or overly formal and may experience anxiety as they try to find an occupation that reflects how they think of their work. Using the term "job title" instead of “occupation,” encouraging claimants to find their "best match" in the search results, and providing context about how the information will be used may ease some confusion and anxiety.

Principles used: Plain language, brevity, inclusiveness, tone