Some empirical evidence on the 'discouraged worker' effect

This note produces empirical evidence on the existence of a significant "di scouraged worker" effect in US data-namely, on the tendency for groups of s econdary workers to move in and out of the labor force with the business cy cle, looking for jobs when these are available, while giving up job search during recessions - by focusing on the behavior of the "not in the labor fo rce" series, as well as of two of its segments ("going to school", and "kee ping house"), at the business-cycle frequencies. Both in the aggregate, and for a number of age-sex groups, the series display a clear counter-cyclica l pattern, thus lending support to the discouraged worker notion. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.