Youth unemployment can lead to long-term cognitive and emotional scars

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Youth unem­ploy­ment pro­duces mul­ti­ple scar­ring effects (British Pol­i­tics & Policy):

“Being unem­ployed when young leads to a high­er like­li­hood of long-term ‘scar­ring’ in lat­er life in terms of sub­se­quent low­er pay, high­er unem­ploy­ment and reduced life chances accord­ing to much research…There is also evi­dence of greater men­tal health prob­lems in their 40s or 50s…

First, employ­ers may con­sid­er peri­ods of unem­ploy­ment on someone’s CV to be a neg­a­tive sig­nal, for exam­ple sig­nalling per­ceived low productivity…

Sec­ond, unem­ploy­ment at the start of their career may lead to hav­ing low­er skills or to a gen­er­al loss of con­fi­dence by the indi­vid­ual. Cog­ni­tive skills (for exam­ple, learn­ing skills and the abil­i­ty to process infor­ma­tion) are like­ly to affect the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and adapt­abil­i­ty of a work­er and hence their like­ly pay or abil­i­ty to get a suit­able job lat­er in life. Non-cog­ni­tive skills (for exam­ple, a person’s depend­abil­i­ty, self-dis­ci­pline, inter-per­son­al skills, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, adapt­abil­i­ty, con­sis­ten­cy, per­sis­tence and self-con­fi­dence) are also important.

Third, scar­ring may change people’s expec­ta­tions, such as cre­at­ing a greater expectan­cy of future unemployment…

What is clear though is that youth unem­ploy­ment leads to sig­nif­i­cant long-term scar­ring for many and pol­i­cy mak­ers must put much more effort into both reduc­ing youth unem­ploy­ment and seek­ing to under­stand and ame­lio­rate its long-term effects.”

Learn more:

• The real brain drain: How unem­ploy­ment depletes cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al resources
• Brain teasers and tips to stay sharp in between jobs (and when you have one too)