This article reviews the empirical literature on the scarring effects of unemployment, by first presenting an overview of empirical evidence relating to the impact of unemployment spells on subsequent labor market outcomes and then exploiting meta-regression techniques. Empirical evidence is homogeneous in highlighting significant and often persistent wage losses and strong unemployment state dependence. This is confirmed by a meta-regression analysis under the assumption of a common true effect. Heterogeneous findings emerge in the literature, related to the magnitude of these detrimental effects, which are particularly penalizing in terms of labor earnings in case of unemployment periods experienced by laid-off workers. We shed light on further sources of heterogeneity and find that unemployment is particularly scarring for men and when studies’ identification strategy is based on selection on observables.

本文回顾了关于失业疤痕效应的实证文献，首先概述了与失业期对后续劳动力市场结果的影响相关的实证证据，然后利用元回归技术。经验证据在强调显着且经常持续的工资损失和强烈的失业状态依赖性方面是同质的。在共同真实效应的假设下，元回归分析证实了这一点。文献中出现了与这些不利影响的严重程度相关的异质性发现，在下岗工人经历失业期的情况下，这些不利影响在劳动收入方面尤其不利。