Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35930 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 4751
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
The empirical literature on unemployment almost exclusively focuses on the duration of distinct unemployment spells. In contrast, we use a large German administrative micro data set for the time span 1975-2004 to investigate individual lifetime unemployment (defined as the total length of all unemployment spells over a 25-year period). This new perspective enables us to answer questions regarding the long-term distribution and determinants of unemployment for West German birth cohorts 1950-1954. We find that lifetime unemployment is highly unevenly distributed and employ censored quantile regressions to show that, for men, pursuing a disadvantageous occupation early in the professional career leads to a significantly higher amount of lifetime unemployment.
Subjects: 
Lifetime unemployment
censored quantile regressions
occupation-specific human capital
JEL: 
J64
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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