da Understanding Society, an academic study capturing information every year about the social and economic circumstances and attitudes of people

26 Jul 2013

Two generations of worklessness

Young people whose fathers were unemployed when they were growing up are more likely to be out of work themselves, according to research presented today (Friday, July 26) at the Understanding Society Conference 2013.

Social policy website Society Central reports on research presented at today’s conference showing young people whose fathers were unemployed when they were growing up are more likely to be out of work themselves and happier

And while the unemployed offspring of working fathers tended to suffer psychological effects from being out of work, those who had unemployed fathers were happier.

Wouter Zwysen, a PhD student at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, finds being out of work is associated with lower life satisfaction – but only for the children of working fathers.

The research used data from 2,500 respondents aged between 16 and 25 in Understanding Society. Among those respondents, 342 had fathers who did not work when they were 14 and a further 630 had fathers who worked in low-paid jobs.

Those whose fathers were unemployed were 15 per cent more likely to be unemployed than those whose fathers worked in low-paid jobs. Those offspring of workless fathers who did have jobs worked on average three hours less per month than those whose fathers had low-paid jobs, and their incomes were between £150-200 lower.

For a more detailed report see Society Central.