A portrait of the youth labor market in 13 countries, 1980-2007

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 132, Issue 7, 2009, Pages 3-21

  Martin, Gary ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 70349581057     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Constance Sorrentino, "Youth unemployment: an international perspective," Monthly Labor Review, July 1981, pp. 3-15
2. on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1981/07/art1full.pdf (visited July 9, 2009). The countries in that study were the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Italy, Sweden, West Germany, and the United Kingdom excluding Northern Ireland.
3. For other adjustments to the Canadian labor force statistics, see "International Comparisons of Annual Labor Force Statistics, 10 Countries, 1960-2007"(Bureau of Labor Statistics, Oct. 21, 2008), on the Internet at www.bls.gov/fls/flscomparelf.htm (visited July 9, 2009)
4. click on "Technical Notes."
5. On declining birthrates, see Gary Martin and Vladimir Kats, "Families and work in transition in 12 countries, 1980-2001, Monthly Labor Review, September 2003, pp. 3-31, table 1, p. 4
6. on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2003/09/art1full.pdf (visited July 9, 2009).
7. Table 2, "Civilian labor force, employment, and unemployment approximating U.S. concepts, 1960-2007"(Bureau of Labor Statistics, no date), on the Internet at ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabor/lfcompendiumt02.txt (visited July 9, 2009). Overall unemployment data from OECD and from BLS are generally comparable.
8. As an example of the routine use of the ratio of youth to adult unemployment, see "Youth unemployment," in Key Indicators of the Labor Market, 4th ed. (International Labor Office, 2006), table 9, pp. 431-42.
9. Perhaps the point may be more easily understood by looking at the change in one measure of unemployment, as opposed to comparing two unemployment rates. A rise in the national unemployment rate from, say, 10 percent to 20 percent is clearly a much more serious matter than a rise from 1 percent to 2 percent, because a much greater percentage of the population has become unemployed in the former instance than in the latter, although in each case there was the same 100-percent increase in the unemployment rate. Finally, the point may be driven home with the following ditty of mine, titled "Welfare Theory in Verse" (assuming a labor force of 100): Rita, the second to lose her job, Claimed a greater importance than Floyd. For he was only number ten In the line of the unemployed. She doubled the unemployment rate, Though that was not her intent, While Floyd only managed to raise the rate By eleven point one percent. "But wait," said the seriously slighted Floyd, "Her importance is not so great. Please notice how my being laid off Changed the employment rate."
10. Global Employment Trends for Youth, 2006 (International Labor Office, 2006), p. 19.
11. Olivier Marchand, "Youth Unemployment in OECD Countries: How Can the Disparities Be Explained?" in Preparing Youth for the 21st Century: The Transition from Education to the Labour Market (Paris, OECD, 1999), pp. 336-44. According to Marchand, 23 percent of employed young people in the European Union in 1995 worked on fixed-term contracts, as opposed to 7 percent of employed
12. persons over the age of 30. The practice, says Marchand, is much more prevalent in Sweden, France, and Spain than in the United Kingdom or Italy.
13. Employment Outlook (Paris, OECD, 2008), p. 33.
14. The apparent greater natural facility of young people to adapt to new computer-related work should have worked as a counterbalance to these labor market disadvantages to a degree, as information and communication technologies changed rapidly in recent years. (See Peter Morris, "A Survey of the Implications of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on Youth Employment," issues paper prepared for the International Labor Organization, November 2000, on the Internet at www.telesis.com.au/docs/ICTs_&_Youth_Employment.doc (visited, July 9, 2009).)
15. Norman Bowers, Anne Sonnet, and Laura Bardone, "Giving Young People a Good Start: The Experience of OECD Countries," in Preparing Youth for the 21st Century: The Transition from Education to the Labour Market (Paris, OECD, 1999), pp. 7-86. (See especially p. 71.)
16. Richard B. Freeman, "The Youth Job Market Problem at Y2K," Preparing Youth for the 21st Century, pp. 89-100. Some economists argue that the United States should be included among those countries in which increased schooling and lower labor participation rates by young people are caused, at least partially, by a softening job market. (See Sudeep Reddy, "Teen Behavior Offers Clue to Why Jobless Rate Stays Low Despite Slowing Growth," The Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007, p. A2.)
17. Peter van der Meer and Rudi Wielers, "The Increased Labour Market Participation of Dutch Students," Work, Employment & Society, vol. 15, no. 1, 2001, pp. 55-71
18. on the Internet at wes.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/1/55 (visited July 9, 2009). The Netherlands has by far the highest percentage of part-time employment among the 30 countries of the OECD, 35.7 percent of total employment in 2005. (See "Part-Time Employment," in OECD Factbook 2007 (Paris, OECD, 2007), pp. 128-29
19. on the Internet at fiordiliji.sourceoecd.org/pdf//fact2007pdf//06-01-03.pdf (visited July 9, 2009).)
20. Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 2006 (Paris, OECD, Sept. 12, 2006), p. 38.
21. Ibid., p. 39.
22. OECD.StatExtracts, on the Internet at stats.oecd.org/wbos/Index.aspx (visited July 9, 2009).
23. Hyejin Kim, "A NEET Trick: Living on Familial Love," Asia Times Online, Feb. 17, 2006, on the Internet at www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/HB17Dk01.html (visited July 9, 2009).
24. Employment Outlook (Paris, OECD, 2002). (See also Education at a Glance, pp. 118-19.)
25. Niall O'Higgins, Youth Unemployment and Employment Policy: A Global Perspective (Geneva, International Labor Office, 2001), pp. 100-05.
26. A 1995 OECD literacy survey found that 20.3 percent of employed 16- to 24-year-olds in the United States had only minimal mathematical skills, while the figure was 8.2 percent for Canada, 5.7 percent for the Netherlands, 5.2 percent for Sweden, and 2.3 percent for Germany. (See Lisa M. Lynch, "The Transition from Initial Education to the Labour Market: Recent Experience in the United States," in Preparing Youth for the 21st Century, pp. 289-301.)
27. O'Higgins, Youth Unemployment and Employment Policy, p. 104.
28. Paul Ryan, "The School-to-Work Transition: A Cross-National Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, March 2001, p. 57.
29. Robert I. Lerman, "Improving Career Outcomes for Youth: Lessons from the U.S. and OECD Experience" (The Urban Institute and U.S. Department of Labor, 2000 and 2001), on the Internet at wdr.doleta.gov/opr/fulltext/01-oecd.pdf (visited July 10, 2009).
30. Naoki Mitani, "The Japanese Employment System and Youth Labor Market," in Preparing Youth for the 21st Century, pp. 305-28.
31. Ryan, "The School-to-Work Transition," p. 57.
32. Mitani, "The Japanese Employment System," p. 306.
33. Reiko Kosugi, "The Transition from School to Work in Japan: Understanding the Increase in Freeter and Jobless Youth," Japan Labor Review, winter 2004, pp. 52-67-see especially p. 53
34. on the Internet at www.jil.go.jp/english/JLR/2004bi.htm#no1.htm (visited July 10, 2009).
35. Ibid., p. 52.
36. Ryan, "The School-to-Work Transition," p. 68.
37. Annette H. K. Son, "Social Insurance Programs in South Korea and Taiwan: A Historical Overview," Uppsala Papers in Economic History, Research Report No. 50 (Uppsala, Sweden, Uppsala University, 2002), p. 15
38. on the Internet at 66.102.1.104/scholar?q=cache:pKpNvU-P35QJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en (visited July 10, 2009).
39. Marchand, "Youth Unemployment in OECD Countries," p. 332
40. Torild Hammer, ed., "Introduction," Youth Unemployment and Social Exclusion in Europe: A Comparative Study (Bristol, U.K., The Policy Press, 2003), pp. 10, 13.
41. Gary Martin, "Employment and Unemployment in Mexico in the 1990s," Monthly Labor Review, November 2000, pp. 3-18
42. see especially pp. 8-11; on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/11/art1full.pdf (visited July 7, 2009)