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...

With the introduction of a new welfare benefit system in 2005, Germany implemented quite strict benefit sanctions for welfare recipients aged younger than 25 years. For all types of non-compliance except for missing appointments, their basic cash benefit is withdrawn for three months. A second...