The scarring theory predicts that the effect of present unemployment will potentially last for the individual’s entire remaining working lifetime. This paper investigates how self-employment in the informal sector, rather than unemployment per se, influences the scarring effects in Indonesia, where informality is prevalent. It finds that the scarring effect due to previous unemployment is more observable among senior workers, while that due to previous self-employment is more significant among young workers aged 25–34 years. This indicates limited opportunity for human capital accumulation in self-employment and/or use of this information as an indicator of low productivity by employers.

疤痕形成理论预测，当前失业的影响可能会持续到个人的整个剩余工作寿命。本文研究了非正规部门的自雇而不是失业本身如何影响印度尼西亚的疤痕形成效应。研究发现，以前的失业造成的疤痕效应在高级工人中更为明显，而在25-34岁的年轻工人中，由于先前的自营职业造成的疤痕效应更为显着。这表明自营职业中人力资本积累的机会有限和/或使用此信息作为雇主生产率低下的指标。