We explore whether ageist stereotypes in job ads are detectable using machine-learning methods measuring the linguistic similarity of job-ad language to ageist stereotypes identified by industrial psychologists. We then conduct an experiment to evaluate whether this language is perceived as biased against older workers searching for jobs. We find that job-ad language classified by the machine-learning algorithm as closely related to ageist stereotypes is perceived by experimental subjects as biased against older job seekers. These methods could potentially help enforce anti-discrimination laws by using job ads to predict or identify employers more likely to be engaging in age discrimination.

Unemployment insurance benefits are often extended during recessions. Existing research shows that this policy increases the unemployment rate and the duration of unemployment. But less is known about why these changes occur. I construct a job search model with an endogenous participation decision to quantify the contributions of (i) search effort, (ii) job selectivity, and (iii) labor market participation, to changes in unemployment outcomes. In a model calibrated to the US economy, I show that the increased participation accounts for a large fraction of the increase in the unemployment rate following a permanent extension of benefits. This finding indicates the importance of changes in the participation decision of workers facing extended benefits for the unemployment rate—a mechanism that is understudied and frequently overlooked in the quantitative labor market research exploring the impact of UI policies.

In recent decades, the use of conditionality backed by benefit sanctions for those claiming unemployment and related benefits has become widespread in the social security systems of high-income countries. Critics argue that sanctions may be ineffective in bringing people back to employment or indeed harmful in a range of ways. Existing reviews largely assess the labour market impacts of sanctions but our understanding of the wider impacts is more limited. We report results from a scoping review of the international quantitative research evidence on both labour market and wider impacts of benefit sanctions. Following systematic search and screening, we extract data for 94 studies reporting on 253 outcome measures. We provide a narrative summary, paying attention to the ability of the studies to support causal inference. Despite variation in the evidence base and study designs, we found that labour market studies, covering two thirds of our sample, consistently reported positive impacts for employment but negative impacts for job quality and stability in the longer term, along with increased transitions to non-employment or economic inactivity. Although largely relying on non-experimental designs, wider-outcome studies reported significant associations with increased material hardship and health problems. There was also some evidence that sanctions were associated with increased child maltreatment and poorer child well-being. Lastly, the review highlights the generally poor quality of the evidence base in this area, with few studies employing research methods designed to identify the causal impact of sanctions, especially in relation to wider impacts.

Job search is a central element of activation policies, which aim to transform unemployed people into active jobseekers who are subject to checks. We examine a neglected aspect of activation: sanctions. To do so we analyse, through biographical interviews with formerly-unemployed people whose benefit payments have been stopped, what it means when a job search is deemed insufficient. Although these formerly-unemployed people have failed to present enough written and tangible evidence of their job search during checks, they have pursued a different type of job search comprising more informal activities that are difficult to convert into written documents. So, we identify a twin-stranded job search – prescribed and alternative. We also point out that the gap between institutionally-framed job search and experience-based job search widens among unemployed people having low employability attributes, so that ever-stricter checks penalize those who are most vulnerable.

Unemployment strongly influences a person’s economic resources and life chances. Especially for unemployed individuals who have to rely on means-tested benefits, episodes of unemployment often go along with substantial material restrictions. Therefore, from a policy perspective, measures or regulations that might shorten unemployment episodes and reduce overall unemployment are particularly important.

In this paper, we analyse whether concessions regarding the characteristics of the job searched for influence an individual’s unemployment duration. In doing so, we focus on a particular aspect of availability requirements in Germany. This is the fact that for unemployed recipients of means-tested benefits almost all types of jobs count as suitable employment and, therefore, recipients are obliged to make job-related concessions if offered a job requiring such concessions.

The results indicate that there is no positive effect of making concessions regarding qualification requirements or status on employment chances. In contrast, there are positive effects of wage concessions. However, searching for a job in a different occupation (that does not necessarily imply a concession) has a comparable, positive effect on finding employment. Thus, it appears that being generally flexible regarding one’s future occupation might be at least as important for employment chances as making concessions.

Unemployment insurance schemes typically include eligibility conditions comprising the employment history prior to becoming unemployed, an aspect largely neglected in the literature. We develop an analytically tractable matching model including such contingencies. Unemployed determine reservation durations for jobs to be acceptable, and stronger employment histories increase reservation durations. This creates a stratification among unemployed; unemployed with short employment histories accept short-term jobs, while those with a strong employment history aims for jobs with a longer duration. A trade-off arises between the employment level and the matching quality in terms of job duration; a stronger reward to employment histories reduces employment, but improves match quality (more long-term jobs). Numerical simulations show that the distribution between short- and long-term jobs is significantly affected by history dependencies in benefits levels and duration. The optimal utilitarian policy is shown to include contingencies based on employment histories of the unemployed.

Unemployment has negative but also positive effects on mental health and general well-being depending on which coping strategies the individual use. Our aim was to determine the contribution of core self-evaluations in explaining the coping strategies of job search and job devaluation, as well as to test the potential moderation effect of job search and mediation effect of job devaluation on the relationship between self core-evaluations and both positive and negative experience of unemployment. One hundred seventy-eight individuals who lost their jobs involuntarily for a longer period than one month completed a questionnaire while attending to employment office. Results show that there is a significant relation between core-self evaluations and job devaluation (.37**). Furthermore, core-self evaluations were positively related to positive experience of unemployment (r = .31; p < .01) and negatively related to negative experience of unemployment (r = .60; p < .01). Moreover, self-core evaluations predicted both coping with unemployment strategies (job devaluation; β = .26; p < .01 and job search β = .19; p < .05). However, job search did not moderate the relationship between core self-evaluations and experience of unemployment. But, individuals with a longer duration of the current period of unemployment and higher core self-evaluations had a more positive experience of unemployment, and job devaluation partially mediated this relation (SE = .002; p = .038). These results imply that programs interventions should include the improvement of core self-evaluations and the positive experience of unemployed people.

Using an institutional perspective, this paper explores coexisting job search methods in reforming China. Analysis of the 2003 Chinese General Social Survey data shows that China's labour markets are segmented into institutional niches by two key factors: the type of ownership of work organization and the status of the work organization in the market. The effectiveness of job search methods varies across the different institutional niches. Hierarchical arrangements and social networks remain powerful means of obtaining jobs in the state sector, including both monopolistic and competitive work organizations, while job searches using a market-oriented method are comparatively useful for winning jobs in the non-state sector irrespective of whether organizations are competitive or monopolistic in terms of market competition. This paper not only illustrates the value of an institutional approach to labour market research but also reveals the scope of market penetration in China's emerging labour markets.

This article examines the impact of disability and related variables (age, gender, and education level) on job search behaviours and employment outcomes. Data are from a two-wave study of 681 Australians between the ages of 45 and 65 who were not in paid employment. Regression modelling indicates that disability impedes job search at several stages of the employment process. Although is it unrelated to job search intensity, disability is negatively associated with the probability of engaging in job search, preferred weekly hours of work, and the likelihood of finding work. Gender and age are related to the probability of engaging in job search and gender is also associated with preferred hours to work. These findings indicate that older workers with a disability face multiple disadvantages when seeking employment.

This article reviews published research on the effects of disability, age and gender on the job search process. Electronic databases (Medline [via Ovid], OT Seeker, CINAHL, AMED, and Proquest 5000) were used to identify studies focusing on job search and employment, disability, age, gender and other barriers to workforce participation. There has been extensive research on the effects of age and gender on the job search process, and the available evidence indicates that disability, age and gender play significant roles in shaping the job search processes of older workers. However, there has been little rigorous investigation of the role of disability and research specifically examining the relationships between disability, job search behaviours and employment outcomes was not identified. This is a significant gap in the literature on disability and participation in the labour market. Overall, this narrative review indicates that older workers with a disability face multiple disadvantages when seeking work, which impairs their ability to fully engage in the labour market.

Long-term unemployment of older people can have severe consequences for individuals, communities and ultimately economies, and is therefore a serious concern in countries with an ageing population. However, the interplay of chronological age and other individual difference characteristics in predicting older job seekers' job search is so far not well understood. This study investigated relationships among age, proactive personality, occupational future time perspective (FTP) and job search intensity of 182 job seekers between 43 and 77 years in Australia. Results were mostly consistent with expectations based on a combination of socio-emotional selectivity theory and the notion of compensatory psychological resources. Proactive personality was positively related to job search intensity and age was negatively related to job search intensity. Age moderated the relationship between proactive personality and job search intensity, such that the relationship was stronger at higher compared to lower ages. One dimension of occupational FTP (perceived remaining time left in the occupational context) mediated this moderating effect, but not the overall relationship between age and job search intensity. Implications for future research, including the interplay of occupational FTP and proactive personality, and some tentative practical implications are discussed.

The fraction of the labor force under 35, or youth share, has been correlated with cyclical GDP volatility over the past several decades. The youth share and business cycle fluctuations were high during the 1970s. Then, as the population aged, output volatility declined. I develop an overlapping generations model featuring search frictions and productivity shocks, in which the age distribution affects cyclical volatility through two channels. First, employment for younger workers fluctuates more, creating a composition effect. Second, inexperienced workers produce less, so firms decide how many jobs to create based on the age distribution. Both this endogenous response by firms and the composition effect increase aggregate volatility when the youth share is high. The model can replicate a large portion of the Great Moderation in GDP volatility, suggesting an important role for demographics. The model also replicates unemployment rates, separation rates, and employment volatility by age group.

Cet article vise à analyser les effets des conditions d'éligibilité à l'assurance chômage sur le taux de chômage d'équilibre et le bien-être dans un modèle de recherche d'emploi avec accumulation de capital et effort de recherche endogène. Trois instruments de politique économique sont considérés: le montant des indemnisations, la durée de versement des prestations et la période de cotisation au régime d'assurance chômage. Nous mon-trons qu'un allongement de la durée de versement accompagné d'une baisse des allocations améliore le bien-être en utilisant de manière plus efficace la capacité d'auto-assurance des chômeurs éligibles.

We consider a generalization of the house-selling problem to selling k houses. Let the offers, X1, X2, · ··, be independent, identically distributed k-dimensional random vectors having a known distribution with finite second moments. The decision maker is to choose simultaneously k stopping rules, N1, · ··, Nk, one for each component. The payoff is the sum over j of the jth component of minus a constant cost per observation until all stopping rules have stopped. Simple descriptions of the optimal rules are found. Extension is made to problems with recall of past offers and to problems with a discount.

In this paper, optimal stopping problems for semi-Markov processes are studied in a fairly general setting. In such a process transitions are made from state to state in accordance with a Markov chain, but the amount of time spent in each state is random. The times spent in each state follow a general renewal process. They may depend on the present state as well as on the state into which the next transition is made.

Our goal is to maximize the expected net return, which is given as a function of the state at time t minus some cost function. Discounting may or may not be considered. The main theorems (Theorems 3.5 and 3.11) are expressions for the optimal stopping time in the undiscounted and discounted case. These theorems generalize results of Zuckerman [16] and Boshuizen and Gouweleeuw [3]. Applications are given in various special cases.

The results developed in this paper can also be applied to semi-Markov shock models, as considered in Taylor [13], Feldman [6] and Zuckerman [15].

In this paper we examine a continuous model of job search. An individual is seeking employment continuously over time. There is a search cost of c monetary units per unit time. Job offers are received randomly over time according to a renewal process. The wage offers are assumed to be positive, independent and identically distributed random variables. The only decision the searcher must make is when to stop searching and accept an offer. The objective is to determine a stopping rule that is optimal under the following optimality criteria:

1. (a) maximum expected net return,

2. (b) maximum expected discounted net return.

We investigate the case in which the stream of job offers is determined by a Poisson process. We show that under the two optimality criteria defined above an optimal stopping rule is determined by a single critical value ξ. The optimal strategy is to accept the first job offer that exceeds ξ. In the second part of the article, the search model in which offers are received according to a general renewal process is examined.