The worklessness legacy: Do working mothers make a difference?

This chapter examines how intergenerational transmission of worklessness varies according to the gender of parents and their children in 26 European countries. The analysis draws on EU-SILC 2011 cross-sectional data, using a sample of young people aged 25–34 for whom information about parental background characteristics when they were aged around 14 is available. We expect fathers’ and mothers’ employment conditions during their children’s adolescence to impact differently on the labor outcomes of sons and daughters, with cross-country differences depending on national-specific socioeconomic structures and institutional contexts. Empirical findings suggest that having had a workless mother increases both sons' and daughters' likelihood of being workless at around age 30 in all but the Nordic countries. The effects of fathers’ working conditions are less significant. Fathers’ employment matters for both sons and daughters in Mediterranean and Eastern countries, only for daughters in English-speaking countries, and only for sons in Nordic countries.