Purpose

This paper aims to analyze the question of how household indebtedness impacts households’ incentives to search for and accept work after displacement.

Design/methodology/approach

To analyze the relationship between household indebtedness and unemployment duration, this paper applies standard proportional hazard models. For data, this paper relies on the longitudinal US National Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), covering the period between 2008 and 2012.

Findings

The findings show that a 10% increase in household debt increases the likelihood (hazard) of leaving unemployment by 0.2%–0.4% points. Independent of measuring a household's indebtedness and in light of a series of robustness tests, the results indicate that the pressure of servicing an existing debt burden forces individuals to return to work.

Social implications

From a policy perspective, the research findings support the notion that household indebtedness plays an important mediating role for labor market outcomes through influencing households’ incentives to return to work after displacement. This finding has important implications for the design of effective policy responses to mass layoffs during the current pandemic.

Originality/value

A key innovation of the research is that we can show that household indebtedness impacts the labor supply side. From a macroeconomic perspective, this insight is important in better understanding the role of increased indebtedness (and financialization) in amplifying aggregate macroeconomic dynamics.

中文翻译：

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流离失所和债务——债务在流离失所后重返工作岗位中的作用

目的

本文旨在分析家庭债务如何影响家庭在流离失所后寻找和接受工作的动机的问题。

设计/方法/方法

为了分析家庭负债与失业持续时间之间的关系，本文应用了标准的比例风险模型。对于数据，本文依赖于 2008 年至 2012 年期间的纵向美国国家收入和计划参与调查 (SIPP)。

发现

调查结果表明，家庭债务每增加 10%，失业的可能性（风险）就会增加 0.2%–0.4%。独立于衡量家庭债务并根据一系列稳健性测试，结果表明偿还现有债务负担的压力迫使个人重返工作岗位。

社会影响

从政策的角度来看，研究结果支持这样一种观点，即通过影响家庭在流离失所后重返工作岗位的动机，家庭债务在劳动力市场结果中发挥着重要的中介作用。这一发现对于设计针对当前大流行期间大规模裁员的有效政策反应具有重要意义。

原创性/价值

该研究的一个关键创新是我们可以证明家庭债务会影响劳动力供给侧。从宏观经济的角度来看，这一见解对于更好地理解增加的债务（和金融化）在放大总体宏观经济动态方面的作用非常重要。