Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/110702 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 8972
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Although home-ownership has been shown to restrict geographic labor mobility and to affect job search behavior of unemployed, there is no evidence so far on how it affects their future re-employment outcomes. We use two waves of detailed German survey data of newly unemployed individuals to study the effect of home-ownership on the job search behavior of unemployed and their re-employment outcomes. We show that unemployed who own a home are less willing to move and also less likely to apply for jobs for which one would have to move. However, we do not find any evidence for compensations of their restricted mobility by more intensive (more search channels or applications) or different (more active or informal) search behavior. Furthermore, we find that home-ownership does not seem to harm the employment prospects of the unemployed. Although the re-employment probability in the short-run is slightly lower, we find that after one year home-owning unemployed have found better re-employment jobs, in terms of wages and job satisfaction, than their renting counterparts.
Subjects: 
job search behavior
home-ownership
search effort
reservation wage
unemployment duration
JEL: 
J64
J61
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
282.87 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.