Can the labor status of parents and the composition of the family influence the future labor situation of children? Evidence for Spain

The aim of this paper is to analyze whether family support, measured through the labor status of parents and the composition of the household during adolescence, may be an important determinant of unemployment in Spain. To address this issue, we follow the Quantity-Quality model of Becker-Lewis (Becker and Lewis, 1973), using data from the Survey of Living Conditions (2011). First, our results show that individuals living with both parents at home during their teenage years are less likely to be unemployed in the future. Second, we find evidence of the intergenerational transmission of unemployment outcomes, and that the unemployment status of the mother is strongly transferred to the child. Additionally, we extend this work to an analysis of the type of job, finding that household composition is an important determinant of self-employment and temporary employment. Our findings are robust to controls for observable and unobservable characteristics by region, and to the use of different subsamples