Youth unemployment in the Netherlands

Abstract

This thesis aims to study the influence of personal characteristics and a person’s social network on the percentage of time an adolescent, being part of the workforce, has been unemployed. The focus is mainly on factors of influence on a micro level (Motivation and Human Capital) and meso level (Social Capital). Human capital provides signals aboput potential productivity, motivation determines the effort an adolescent makes in finding and keeping job. Social capital is expected to influence motivation, as well as provide leads to jobs, which can be usefull during the job search process. OLS-regression has shown that micro level explanations were the most important factors of influence when explaining youth unemployment, though meso-level explanations have also shown to be related with youth unemployment.