Labour market performance of surviving relatives in the Netherlands: applying sequence analysis on SSD data

Katja Chkalova (CBS)

16 May 2013

Summary

1. Introduction

2. Data & analysis methods

3. Results

Introduction

Changes in social security policy National Survivors Benefits Act (Anw) and recent

research Research questions

What routes and trajectories do survivors of bereavement adopt on the labour market after the event (typology)?

What routes and trajectories lead to withdrawal from the labour market and Anw - dependence

Discriminating effects

Sequence analysis in a nutshell

Sequence properties and general statistics

Most analysis methods focus on only one state or transition/event The average labour market career often contains multitudes of

states and transitions (E/UB/U) Sequence analysis offers the possibility to examine labour market

careers as a whole of states, transitions and events• # distinct states, events and transitions• Length / duration of distinct states (mean / total duration / duration of separate

spells)• Most common patterns / searching for particular patterns• Entropy, turbulence, complexity • Timing of events

Edit-distances• Hamming distance (substitution costs)• Optimal Matching (indel costs)

Quantified Common Attribute• Longest Common Prefix• Longest Common Suffix• Longest Common Sub-sequence• # of Distinct Sub-sequences• # Matching Sub-sequences

Sequence analysis in a nutshell

Pairs of sequences: distances, similarities and dissimilarities

Results

Operationalising and alphabet

- Research population: persons who have lost their partner in 2002-2003

- Sequences of the same length of 61 months: 12 months before the event (death of the partner), the month of the event and 48 months after the event

- Emphasising Anw- benefits as a separate state- Three integrated tracks of sequences

- Job - Benefits (AO/WW/WWB)- Anw benefits

- 65 years and older as a separate category for labour market state

Results

Operationalising and alphabet

Starting position:• working • inactive • receiving benefits• working with benefits• Other

Results

Operationalising and alphabet

- Construct sequence strings- Distinguish between the starting positions- Determine general statistics of sequence strings- Calculate distances between sequence strings

separately for every starting position- Find clusters of distances within every group with a

distinct starting position- Do a regression analysis with typology as dependent

variable

Results

Steps in the analysis

Visualisation of the sequence data: The state distribution plot of thelabour market states of the survivors during 61 months

Results

General statistics

Working Inactive Benefits

Working with benefits

Results

General statistics

# transitions per period

t61

t60

t59

t58

t57

t56

t55

t54

t53

t52

t51

t50

t49

t48

t47

t46

t45

t44

t43

t42

t41

t40

t39

t38

t37

t36

t35

t34

t33

t32

t31

t30

t29

t28

t27

t26

t25

t24

t23

t22

t21

t20

t19

t18

t17

t16

t15

t14

t13

t12

t11

t10

t9

t8

t7

t6

t5

t4

t3

t2

12500,00

10000,00

7500,00

5000,00

2500,00

0,00

Su

m

Results

General statistics

Starting position: working

Longest common subsequence

X 1.000 % cluster

Working without any interruptions 11.2 47%

Work > work and Anw 4.1 17%

Work > inactive later in the research period 4.3 18%

Work > inactive within 2 years after the event 1.5 6%

Work > Anw 1.1 5%

Work > 65+ 0.6 3%

Work > other benefits 0.8 3%

Remaining 0.3 1%

Results

Typology

Work > Anw Work > work with Anw

Results

Typology

Starting position: working

• There is an evident impact of the event on the labour market performance of the surviving relatives

• Gender differences in types of trajectories adopted• Significant differences in behaviour between survivors in different life course

phases• The starting position is of great importance for outcomes (typology)• Anw is being used by different groups of survivors:

- Long-term Anw assistance with little chance of reconnecting with the

labour market

- Complementary Anw-assistance

Results

Important conclusions

Labour market performance of surviving relatives in the Netherlands: applying sequence analysis on SSD data

Questions?

Katja Chkalova (CBS)

16 May 2013