Keywords: inactivity, long run consequences of unemployment/non employment.
This study proposes a new approach to the analysis of long-term non-employment
and its duration in Germany, Italy and Spain using administrative longitudinal databases.
The non-employed are people in working age who have had spells of regular employment
at the beginning of their careers, were laid off and become unemployed, but no longer
succeed to regain a job in the official economy. For many non-employment turns out to be a
lifetime condition. The number of the long-term non-employed (LTNE) is of the same order
of magnitude as official unemployment. Its duration may reach 25-30 years. LTNE has drawn
almost no attention in the academic literature although its long run consequences imply dramatic
changes in individual lifestyles, family and childbearing projects, levels of poverty and
welfare at large