Work-History Patterns in Adult Workers

Discontinuity in job careers affects not only young people but also adult workers, whose prolonged periods of unemployment influence not only current income levels, but also future pension expectations. The attention paid to adult workers depends on the fact that, whereas in a family a precarious young worker is a serious problem, it is much worse if “parents” lose their job for at least two reasons: on the one hand an adult encounters much more difficulties to find a new job (he/she costs more than a young person, is reluctant to job transfers, it is more difficult he/she can acquire new skills as age raises, etc.); on the other hand parents often guarantee household support (not only in economic matters) in those recurrent cases where sons lose their job, thus representing, de facto, a real social welfare structure. The analysis carried out in this paper shows a very composite picture, characterized by extreme rigidity to changes in job conditions and where qualifications, gender and residence seem to be the variables that exert the greatest impact on the probability of remaining unemployed.