Jobless Men and Working Women

Abstract

The discussion in the preceding chapter, on search-based measures of unemployment, pointed to two routes out of unemployment. The first, the ‘high’ road, was to escape unemployment by securing a job and the second, the ‘low’ road, was to leave the labour force by ceasing to search for jobs (that is, to transfer from unemployment into inactivity). A journey down either of these ways would lead to an improvement in the unemployment statistics. By the same token, the pool of unemployed persons is fed from two sources: job losses, which cause people to transfer from employment into unemployment (provided, of course, that this is accompanied by job search) and renewed job search, which results in jobless persons rejoining the labour force by transferring from inactivity into unemployment. The previous chapter emphasised the employment creation route out of unemployment. This chapter discusses the effect on unemployment of withdrawals from the labour market.