Using a longitudinal data of British youths, this paper explores the consequences of past parental unemployment on the current happiness and self-esteem of the children. We find that a past unemployment spell of the father has important consequences for their children and leads to them having both lower subjective well-being and self-confidence. In addition, this paper also presents evidence that both subjective well-being and self-confidence responds differently to maternal unemployment compared to paternal unemployment. In our final table, we show changes in adolescents? well-being and self-esteem predicts educational attainments at 16. Together these findings offer new evidence of unemployment scarring on children?s livelihood.

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14 September 2012     Paper Number CEPDP1165

Download PDF - The Transferable Scars: A Longitudinal Evidence of Psychological Impact of Past Parental Unemployment on Adolescents in the United Kingdom

This CEP discussion paper is published under the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.

This publication comes under the following theme: Causes and effects of wellbeing