Unemployment less likely for young men living at home

The report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the risks of unemployment early in their working lives have risen for successive generations of young men. Those who began their working lives in the 1960s and 1970s usually found jobs on leaving school and remained in work throughout their early 20s. Although many more of their 1990s counterparts continued in education beyond the minimum school-leaving age, they were also more likely to start their working lives without a job and to experience unemployment while under 25.

The study also found that young men were more likely to find themselves out of work in the mid-1990s than young women. The time they spent unemployed was typically but not significantly longer: four months for young men compared with three months for young women.

Researchers at Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy use evidence from three national surveys to reject the bleakest speculation by commentators that ‘underachievement’ by young men is becoming a widespread cause of social dislocation. But they conclude that there are vulnerable groups who have particular difficulty finding paid work and avoiding unemployment.

Shorter spells of unemployment and less difficulty finding work were associated with:

• Unemployed young men who lived with a parent or relative were 2.3 times more likely to move into work than those who did not.
• Young men with work-related qualifications were 1.7 times more likely to leave unemployment for a job than those who did not have them. The advantage that young men looking for work received from vocational qualifications contrasted with unemployed young women, for whom academic qualifications were more important. This appeared to reflect the predominance of manual work among young men and of clerical work among young women.
• Young men and women without health problems were twice as likely to move into jobs as those with a medical condition affecting their ability to work.
• Young men and young women were twice as likely to leave unemployment and find work if they had a current driving licence.
• Unemployed young men with previous work experience were more than twice as likely to sign off and get a job.

The report suggests that the Government’s New Deal for Young People could help those at greatest risk of unemployment by:

• using the Careers Service to target education and training resources on the most vulnerable young people;
• using health professionals and schools to target health education programmes on young men;
• providing money and other incentives to help young men who wish to do so to continue living with their parents or relatives.

Bruce Stafford, co-author of the report, said: 
“This research highlights the challenge facing the Government and its ‘New Deal’ in terms of a sub-group of young men whose participation in the labour market is problematic. The future prospects of young men in the labour market are uncertain, but it does seem likely that the trend for successive generations of young men to be at increased risk of unemployment is set to continue.”