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Why Labor Force Participation (Usually) Increases when Unemployment Declines

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  • Andreas Hornstein

Abstract

Unemployment and labor force participation (LFP) are usually negatively correlated over the business cycle, that is, once the unemployment rate starts to decline the LFP rate starts to increase after about half a year. Using gross flow data on labor market transitions, we show that this cyclical co-movement pattern between the unemployment rate and the LFP rate can be attributed to two factors. First, low unemployment rates imply a low average exit rate from the labor force, which in turn increases the LFP rate. Second, transition rates from out-of-the-labor-force to employment without an intervening unemployment spell increase as unemployment rates decline. A third reason that is commonly mentioned as a source for the negative co-movement between unemployment and LFP cannot be confirmed. According to this reasoning, unemployed workers are less likely to exit the labor force and inactive participants are more likely to join the labor force as unemployed when unemployment declines. In fact, the data suggest that the opposite is true. The behavior of unemployment and LFP in the current recovery has been ?unusual?---even though the unemployment rate has been declining since 2010, the LFP rate has not yet begun to increase. This unusual behavior is potentially informative about the relative magnitude of the cyclical and trend component in recent LFP rate movements.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreas Hornstein, 2013. "Why Labor Force Participation (Usually) Increases when Unemployment Declines," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 1Q, pages 1-23.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedreq:00001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November.
    2. Christopher J. Erceg & Andrew T. Levin, 2014. "Labor Force Participation and Monetary Policy in the Wake of the Great Recession," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(S2), pages 3-49, October.
    3. Stephanie Aaronson & Bruce Fallick & Andrew Figura & Jonathan Pingle & William Wascher, 2006. "The Recent Decline in the Labor Force Participation Rate and Its Implications for Potential Labor Supply," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 37(1), pages 69-154.
    4. Régis Barnichon & Andrew Figura, 2010. "What drives movements in the unemployment rate? a decomposition of the Beveridge curve," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2010-48, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Robert Shimer, 2012. "Reassessing the Ins and Outs of Unemployment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 127-148, April.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Serdar Selçuk & Orhan Torul, 2016. "A note on the intertemporal labor dynamics in Turkey," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(4), pages 2063-2079.
    3. Ferreira, Ernesto R. & Monteiro, João D. & Manso, José R. Pires, 2018. "Are economic crises age and gender neutral? Evidence from European Union mortality data," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 69-77.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure

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