The Concentration of Unemployment Families and Social Networks : A Question of Attitudes or Structural Factors?

This article studies the concentration of unemployment within families and social networks in Sweden. The study, which is based on two random samples, one consisting of some 47,000 young people and their parents and one consisting of 3,500 unemployed people, raises the question of whether unemployment concentration is mainly caused by negative values towards employment or by structural factors. The results show that it is common for people who are unemployed and have experienced longer periods of unemployment to have unemployed family members and friends. The causes of the unemployment concentration can be traced to structural factors such as class, ethnicity, age, unemployment rate and population in the district, rather than to the attitudes of the members of the unemployed group.digitalisering@um