- ** Universidad de Valencia. 31Pd SPAIN* IJNERPLO'MMENT DETERiLi1[INA2bTS FOR 'tvomn. Nieves Lbaro, María Luisa Moltó and Rosario Sánchez**

Transcripción

1 IJNERPLO'MMENT DETERiLi1[INA2bTS FOR 'tvomn 31Pd SPAIN* Nieves Lbaro, María Luisa Moltó and Rosario Sánchez** WP-EC *The authors are gratefull to Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas for their help in data management, and to an anonymous referee the comments, which have jmdroved the content if this paper. Earlier versions of this paper u7ere presented to "Primeras Jornadas de Economía Laboraln organised by Departamento de Fundamentos de Economía e Historia Económica, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, 7-9 June 1995 and tu "7th EALE Conference", Université Lumikre Lyon 2, 7-10 September We would like to thank the audiences for interesting suggestions. - ** Universidad de Valencia

2 Resumen. Espña es uno de los paises de la OCDE donde la tasa de desempleo es mayor. Algunas explicaciones destacan el papel relevante de la duración del desempleo en comparación con las tasas de entrada en el mismo. Las tasas de desempleo de larga duración son especialmente elevadns en el caso de las mujeres. El objetivo de este documento es investigar los determinantes del desempleo y de la duración del desempleo de las mujeres en España. Tomando como base la informcación de la Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares , se analiza el impacto de las características personales (nivel educativo, edaad), variables socioeconómicas de la familia (el número de perceptores y la renta de los hogares) y el efecto de las prestaciones de desempleo A bstract. Spain is one of the OCDE countries where the unemployment rate is higher. Some explanations stress the important role played by unemployment spells in relation to entry rates to the unemployment pool. Long-term unemployment rates are particular& high for women in Spain. Xhe object of this paper is to investigate the determinants of unemployment duration for women. We will consider personal characteristics (education and age), fami& background socioeconomic variables (the number of household earners and household income) and the efsect of unemployment benefits, using data from the Household Expenditure Survey The low employment rates for women in Spain reflects not only high unemployment rates but low levels of activity. Despite the fact that still too few women in Spain have the opportunity of having a job, they increasingly compete with men for new jobs. Nevertheless, the expansion of female labour supply, with a clear positive trend in the activity rates of middle age women, apart fiom cyclical variations which is also connected with sizeable increases on unemployment for those women, can throw some light on the true dimension of the employment problem in Spain (Moitó, 1994, 1995). The objective of this paper is to investigate the unemployment duration for women. In fact, two components can be distinguished in the probability of unemployment: the probability of entry into the unemployment pool and the duration of unemployment (García, Polo and Raymond, 1986). A precise indicator of unemployment duration for women can be obtained by a measure of the searching period, given that according to Gonül (1992), it is clear that when women do not actively search for a job they are out of the labour force, and consequently, they cannot be considered as unemployedl. We can then use as the background fiamework to interpret our empirical findings, the standard job search model, by which the unemployed are supposed to maximise the sum of current and expected utility. We can assume that the provision of l Gonül goes on with the statement that "The discrepancy between males and females can be explained by the fact that women have been culturally trained to stay at home and take care of children. Therefore, when they are at home they are clearly not searching; not that men work more than women, just that women "traditionally are more aware of whether they are searching for a job". (page 532) 2

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