IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecoind/v43y2022i2p705-725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning to keep the faith? Further education and perceived employability among young unemployed

Author

Listed:
  • Monika Mühlböck

    (University of Mannheim, Germany)

  • Nadia Steiber

    (Institute for Advanced Studies, Austria)

  • Bernhard Kittel

    (University of Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

To keep up job search motivation and maintain re-employment chances, it is important that unemployed individuals do not stop believing in their ability to (re)gain satisfying employment. This article examines whether further education during unemployment has a positive effect on perceived employability (i.e. the subjective assessment of one’s chances to obtain the desired job), based on a panel survey of unemployed young adults in Austria. The article finds that educational activities – either on own initiative or as part of an active labor market program – indeed help to sustain or even increase perceived employability. However, only for long-term programs do the effects persist beyond the duration of the activity. This study thus identifies substantial psychological side effects of active labor market policies involving further education, which could be used to increase actual employability.

Suggested Citation

  • Monika Mühlböck & Nadia Steiber & Bernhard Kittel, 2022. "Learning to keep the faith? Further education and perceived employability among young unemployed," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 43(2), pages 705-725, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:43:y:2022:i:2:p:705-725
    DOI: 10.1177/0143831X20944211
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X20944211
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0143831X20944211?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Jochen Kluve & Andrea Weber, 2010. "Active Labour Market Policy Evaluations: A Meta-Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(548), pages 452-477, November.
    2. Markus Freitag & Antje Kirchner, 2011. "Social Capital and Unemployment: A Macro‐Quantitative Analysis of the European Regions," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 59(2), pages 389-410, June.
    3. Bruno Crépon & Gerard J. van den Berg, 2016. "Active Labor Market Policies," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 521-546, October.
    4. Green, Francis, 2011. "Unpacking the misery multiplier: How employability modifies the impacts of unemployment and job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 265-276, March.
    5. Schmillen, Achim & Umkehrer, Matthias, 2013. "The scars of youth : effects of early-career unemployment on future unemployment experience," IAB-Discussion Paper 201306, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    6. Patrick Arni & Marco Caliendo & Steffen Künn & Klaus Zimmermann, 2014. "The IZA evaluation dataset survey: a scientific use file," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-20, December.
    7. Ronald W. McQuaid & Colin Lindsay, 2005. "The Concept of Employability," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(2), pages 197-219, February.
    8. Hogan, Robert & Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas & Kaiser, Robert B., 2013. "Employability and Career Success: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Reality," Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 3-16, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jonathan M.V. Davis & Sara B. Heller, 2017. "Rethinking the Benefits of Youth Employment Programs: The Heterogeneous Effects of Summer Jobs," NBER Working Papers 23443, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Caliendo, Marco & Mahlstedt, Robert & Mitnik, Oscar A., 2017. "Unobservable, but unimportant? The relevance of usually unobserved variables for the evaluation of labor market policies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 14-25.
    3. Pierre Cahuc & Stéphane Carcillo & Ulf Rinne & Klaus Zimmermann, 2013. "Youth unemployment in old Europe: the polar cases of France and Germany," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-23, December.
    4. Adrian Chadi & Clemens Hetschko, 2021. "How Job Changes Affect People's Lives — Evidence from Subjective Well‐Being Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(2), pages 279-306, June.
    5. Maurice Girgis & Raouf S Hanna & Shaikha Al-Fulaij, 2022. "Do Wage Subsidies to Nationals Enhance Their Employability? New Evidence from Kuwait," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 18(11), pages 1-17, November.
    6. Goulas, Eleftherios & Zervoyianni, Athina, 2018. "Active labour-market policies and output growth: Is there a causal relationship?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-14.
    7. Michael C. Knaus & Michael Lechner & Anthony Strittmatter, 2022. "Heterogeneous Employment Effects of Job Search Programs: A Machine Learning Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(2), pages 597-636.
    8. Samson John Mgaiwa, 2021. "Fostering Graduate Employability: Rethinking Tanzania’s University Practices," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, April.
    9. Nikos Bozionelos & Konstantinos Kostopoulos & Beatrice van Der Heijden & Denise M. Rousseau & Giorgos Bozionelos & Thomas Hoyland & Izabela Marzec & Piotr Jędrzejowicz & Olga Epitropaki & Aslaug Mikke, 2016. "Employability and Job Performance as Links in the Relationship Between Mentoring Receipt and Career Success. A Study in SMEs," Post-Print hal-01294990, HAL.
    10. Lehner, Lukas & Kasy, Maximilian, 2022. "Employing the unemployed of Marienthal: Evaluation of a guaranteed job program," INET Oxford Working Papers 2022-29, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    11. Feir, Donn. L. & Foley, Kelly & Jones, Maggie E. C., 2022. "Heterogeneous Returns to Active Labour Market Programs for Indigenous Populations," IZA Discussion Papers 15358, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Juan Blyde & Jose Claudio Pires & Marisol Rodríguez Chatruc, 2023. "International trade, job training, and labor reallocation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1), pages 204-236, February.
    13. Kasy, Maximilian & Lehner, Lukas, 2023. "Employing the Unemployed of Marienthal: Evaluation of a Guaranteed Job Program," IZA Discussion Papers 16088, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Jeremias Nieminen & Ohto Kanninen & Hannu Karhunen, 2023. "The decentralization of public employment services and local governments’ responses to incentives," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(6), pages 1371-1395.
    15. Bergemann, Annette & Pohlan, Laura & Uhlendorff, Arne, 2017. "The impact of participation in job creation schemes in turbulent times," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 182-201.
    16. Malory Rennoir & Ilan Tojerow, 2019. "Évaluation de l’ensemble du dispositif de contrôle de la disponibilité des chômeurs, tel que mis en œuvre au sein du Forem," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/292150, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    17. Miroslav Stefanik, 2021. "Shifting the Training Choice Decision to the Jobseeker—The Slovak Experience," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 35(2), pages 192-213, June.
    18. Eichhorst, Werner & Hinte, Holger & Rinne, Ulf, 2013. "Youth Unemployment in Europe: What to Do about It?," IZA Policy Papers 65, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Surajeet Chakravarty & Todd R. Kaplan & Luke Lindsay, 2020. "Increasing Employment Through the Partial Release of Information," Discussion Papers 2001, University of Exeter, Department of Economics, revised 2023.
    20. Antra Singh & Seema Singh, 2021. "Do Employability Skills Matter in Placement: An Exploratory Study of Private Engineering Institutions and IT Firms in Delhi NCR," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 64(4), pages 1093-1113, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:43:y:2022:i:2:p:705-725. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ekhist.uu.se/english.htm .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.