ABSTRACT
Introduction Employment outcomes in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) European countries in the middle of the last century were enviable: European unemployment rates were consistently below that of the USA through the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Unemployment rates in 1980 in continental Europe’s largest economies – Germany and France – were 2.6 and 5.8 per cent respectively, compared with 7.1 per cent in the USA. Between 1980 and 2000, however, the unemployment rate in the USA fell while unemployment rates in continental European countries diverged, falling in some countries and rising in others. Notably, the unemployment rates in Germany and France rose to 8 and 9 per cent respectively while the US unemployment rate fell to 4 per cent. Meanwhile, the share of the working age population that is employed – the employment-to-population ratio – moved in the opposite direction, rising in the USA and falling in Germany and France. 1 Thus, the USA experienced a falling unemployment rate even as a larger share of the population entered the workforce seeking – and fi nding – jobs.
