Intergenerational influences on the receipt of unemployment insurance in Canada and Sweden

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511492549.012

11 - Intergenerational influences on the receipt of unemployment insurance in Canada and Sweden

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009

Björn Gustafsson and

Edited by

Miles Corak: Affiliation:
Director of family and labour studies Statistics Canada; Research fellow of the institute for the Study Labor (IZA), Bonn, Germany
Björn Gustafsson: Affiliation:
Professor at the Department of Social Work Göoteborg University, Sweden
Torun Österberg: Affiliation:
Affiliated with the Department of Social Work Göoteborg University, Sweden

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Summary

The objective of this chapter is to examine the extent to which an individual's use of unemployment insurance (UI) as a young adult is influenced by having had a parent who also collected UI. There are a number of competing – but not mutually exclusive – explanations for an intergenerational correlation in the receipt of social programs. These include the intergenerational transmission of information about how programs work, or more generally learning and the formation of habits. But, as Chapter 10 suggests, a major methodological challenge in documenting a causal intergenerational link involves determining the extent to which any observed patterns are due to intergenerational correlation of incomes, occupations, or other (potentially unobservable) factors common to parents and children that influence long-term labor market success. If these factors cannot be controlled for, there is a risk of overstating the causal impact of parental activities on the adult outcomes of their children.

The research summarized in this chapter fits into a number of related literatures dealing with intergenerational dynamics. These are discussed in more detail in the next section in the context of a schematic overview of the analysis. The empirical work is based upon longitudinal administrative data associated with the Canadian and Swedish income tax systems that have been linked intergenerationally, and focuses on the pattern of UI use by a cohort of young men and how it relates to the UI use of their fathers.

Type: Chapter
Information: Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe , pp. 245 - 288

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492549.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2004

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