Child and Elderly Care by Unemployed Persons in Germany

Silke Hamann, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Carsten Pohl, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Gabriele Wydra-Somaggio, Institute for Employment Research (IAB)

In Germany, one out of two unemployed persons has been without a job for at least twelve months (=long-term unemployed). In order to explain this finding, the literature has predominantly focused on individual and household characteristics but less on informal activities such as child and elderly care. To fill this research gap, we use four waves of the panel study on labor market and social security (PASS). This representative data set does not only contain detailed information on individuals receiving welfare benefits but also permits to draw inferences on the situation of the entire population in Germany. In a first step, we compare and contrast long-term unemployed persons involved in child and/or elderly care with those not engaged in informal work and the general population. In a second step, we compute transition probabilities for long-term unemployed persons taking into account the length of unemployment, socio-demographic characteristics and informal work.