Youth and gender-specific unemployment and Okun's law in Germany and Poland

The unemployment rates, especially youth unemployment rates, increased in various countries of Europe over the last years. This paper examines gender-specific youth unemployment developments in Germany and Poland with Okun's law to test the hypothesis that young male employees are more vulnerable to the business cycle. I estimate gender- and country-specific Okun coefficients for five different age cohorts. The results show that young men are more sensitive to the business cycle, while for women the reaction is less strong. A further examination of the different labour markets regarding genderspecific youth employment results in policy recommendations beyond GDP growth, such as a reduction of the discrepancy in employment protection between permanent and temporary contracts and an approach to maintain youth connected to the labour market.