A shortage of skilled labor and low female labor market participation are problems many developed countries have to face. Besides activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences...

Different models of protection against labor market risks are associated with diverging models of economic performance. Historically established institutional complementarities between labor market regulation, unemployment protection, and vocational training tend to mirror specific national...

The paper takes a comparative perspective on the labour market impact on G20 and EU countries of the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008. It starts from the observation that the decline in employment and rise in unemployment in relation to output or GDP reductions varies...

In some countries including Germany unemployed workers can increase their income during job search by taking up "marginal employment" up to a threshold without any deduction from their benefits. Marginal employment can be considered as a wage subsidy as it lowers labour costs for firms owing to...

In some countries including Germany unemployed workers can increase their income by working a few hours per week. The intention is to keep unemployed job seekers attached to the labour market and to increase their job-finding probabilities. To analyze the unemployment dynamics of job seekers...

Turning unemployment into self-employment has become an increasingly important part of active labor market policies (ALMP) in many OECD countries. Germany is a good example where the spending on start-up subsidies for the unemployed accounted for nearly 17% of the total spending on ALMP in 2004....

Recent microeconometric evaluation studies have shown that start-up subsidies for unemployed individuals are an effective policy tool to improve long-term employment and income prospects of participants, in particular compared to other active labor market programs (e.g. training, job search...

In the late nineties, Germany was often seen as a laggard with respect to labor market and welfare state reforms with institutional inertia being reflected in notoriously sluggish employment growth and rising unemployment. Recent years, however, saw a complex sequence of reforms with regard to...

Offering unemployed individuals a subsidy to become self-employed is a widespread active labor market policy strategy. Previous studies have illustrated its high effectiveness to help participants escaping unemployment and improving their labor market prospects compared to other unemployed...