Recent years have witnessed a rise in right-wing extremism among German youth and young adults. This paper investigates the extent to which the experience of parental unemployment during childhood affects young people’s far right-wing attitudes and xenophobia. Estimates from three different German data sets show a positive relationship between growing up with unemployed parents and right-wing extremism, with xenophobia in particular. This paper uses differences in unemployment levels between East and West Germany, both before and after reunification, to investigate a causal relationship. Instrumental variables estimates suggest strong and significant effects of parental unemployment on right-wing extremism. This is consistent with classical theories of economic interest and voting behaviour which predict that persons who develop feelings of economic insecurity are more susceptible to right-wing extremism and anti-foreign sentiments.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
2411.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Armin Falk & Andreas Kuhn & Josef Zweimüller, 2009.
"Unemployment and Right-wing Extremist Crime,"
NRN working papers
2009-16, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
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