This article aims to investigate if education policies moderate the association between unemployment and well-being among young adults. Based on the capability approach, we argue that education policies mitigate the negative effects of unemployment by providing opportunities for education and thus ways to exit unemployment. Education policies can strengthen capabilities, enhance the control that individuals have over their situation, and thereby reduce the stress associated with unemployment. We estimated cross-level interactions between education policies and unemployment status using multilevel methods and data from the European Social Survey. Results showed that policies that increase educational opportunities—such as generous second chance opportunities—were associated with smaller negative effects of unemployment on well-being and that this moderating impact was stronger for young adults with low education. Further analyses show that education policies are also associated with perceived capabilities among unemployed, supporting the proposed mechanism.

中文翻译：

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失业、福祉和教育政策的调节作用：多层次研究

本文旨在调查教育政策是否会调节年轻人失业与幸福感之间的关联。基于能力方法，我们认为教育政策通过提供教育机会和摆脱失业的方式来减轻失业的负面影响。教育政策可以增强能力，增强个人对自身状况的控制，从而减轻与失业相关的压力。我们使用来自欧洲社会调查的多层次方法和数据估计了教育政策和失业状况之间的跨层次相互作用。结果表明，增加教育机会的政策（例如慷慨的第二次机会机会）与失业对福祉的负面影响较小有关，并且这种缓和影响对受教育程度低的年轻人更强。进一步的分析表明，教育政策也与失业者的感知能力相关，支持拟议的机制。