Volume 20, Number 2 (Spring) 1985

Corcoran, Mary, and Martha S. Hill. 1985. "Reoccurrence of Unemployment Among Adult Men." Journal of Human Resources 20(2):165-183.

Linkages in the across-time unemployment experiences of adult men are the focus of this paper. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, the paper first documents the strong persistence in unemployment for adult men. It then explores possible explanations for this persistence, searching for "scarring" effects that might remain after controlling for heterogeneity. Results strongly suggest that past unemployment does not increase adult men's chances of current unemployment, invalidating the scarring explanation. Thus, it seems safe to conclude that unemployment does not hurt adult men's chances of future employment. Apparently data collection procedures and unmeasured constant personal and environmental differences in the propensity for unemployment generated the considerable observed persistence in unemployment.