Measuring Employability for Disadvantaged Unemployed People? Evidence from Survey and Register Data

PhD Sofie Dencker-Larsen has written the article 'Measuring Employability for Disadvantaged Unemployed People? Evidence from Survey and Register Data', which has been published in the Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies. 

The article is a proposal to assess disadvantaged unemployed people’s employability.
Disadvantaged unemployed Danes do not easily become re-employed. Previous literature has focused on unemployment versus employment. On the basis of the already excisting literature, Sofie Dencker-Larsen investigates whether variables measuring health, well-being, self-efficacy, alcohol use, and drug use can be included into the measure of employability measured as subsequent re-employment. Data are on disadvantaged unemployment cash benefit recipients from the Copenhagen Unemployment and Well-Being Panel Survey (2013, 2014, N = 2400, analytical sample N = 956) and detailed register data on employment status measured weekly. The results from the analysis reveal that only parts of the proposed indicator are linked with subsequent re-employment, and comprehensive robustness checks reveal that the indicator lacks stability. However, the findings from the study can inform future studies aiming at developing an indicator of employability for disadvantaged unemployed people in Denmark and the other Nordic countries.