Coping with Unemployment in the Course of Time (Unemployed Panel 1978-1982)

In this mail survey (November 1980) the following questions were posed: current employment status; moving frequency; change of place of residence and distance of moving; reason for moving. With respondents who had found employment in the meantime the following additional questions were posed: characterization of current occupational activity and information on training prerequisites as well as working hours and opportunity of doing overtime; characteristics of the job; means of transport and length of route to work; characterization of company; mediation by employment office; compromise solution or employment corresponding to expectations; comparison of current and previous job; usability of knowledge from earlier employment.

Demography: age; sex; marital status; number of children; babies; school education; vocational training; employment; household income; size of household; composition of household; respondent is head of household; division of household work; characteristics of head of household; city size; agricultural operation as second occupation; moves recently, move due to the new job and distance from old place of residence to new. 4th wave: assessment of economic situation; times of employment or unemployment from 1978 to 1981; assessment of occupational consequences of personal unemployment; reason for last unemployment; number of jobs offered by the employment office; one´s own initiative in the search for work; help taken advantage of for occupational reintegration; satisfaction with employment office and case worker; description of current employment situation; interest in regaining employment; part-time or full-time position; assessment whether it will be possible to obtain employment again in the next five years; decision for a specific activity or specific occupation; ideas on income; occupational mobility; reasonable difficulties or those one would accept in order to regain employment; current registration with the employment office as unemployed; reasons for not finding a suitable position (scale); sources of income for livelihood; assessment of condition of health; reduction in earning capacity; illnesses and complaints in the last three months; psychological self-characterization of self-confidence and work orientation (scales); moving frequency.

To those who in the meantime had found work the following questions were also posed: success of mediation by the employment office; temporary or permanent employment; detailed characterization of current activity and relationship to occupation learned; hours worked each week and overtime; length of route to work; assessment of security of one´s job. Those who had not yet found work characterized their last job according to the same criteria.