The effects of father’s worklessness on young adults in the UK

IZA Journal of European Labor Studies

Table 2 mediation between father’s worklessness and respondent’s employment

Mediators	Effect father not working on mediator (s.e.)	Direct effect father not working, accounting for mediator (s.e.)	% effect father not working explained
GHQ score high	0.00 (0.02)	−0.12 (0.02)***	10.2%
Low life satisfaction	−0.09 (0.02)***	−0.14 (0.02)***	1.5%
Wellbeing		−0.13 (0.02)***	8.8%
Low trust	−0.08 (0.03)***	−0.14 (0.02)***	−0.7%
Control over life	−0.14 (0.02)***	−0.14 (0.02)***	−1.5%
Control at home	−0.11 (0.02)***	−0.14 (0.02)***	0%
Experience many demands	−0.16 (0.02)***	−0.14 (0.02)***	−0.7%
Positive outlook	−0.14 (0.04)***	−0.13 (0.02)***	7.3%
Prepared to take risks	−0.17 (0.14)	−0.13 (0.02)***	3.6%
Risk to trust	0.01 (0.13)	−0.14 (0.02)***	0%
Attitudes		−0.13 (0.02)***	8%

***:p < 0.01, controlled for gender, age, education, race, born in UK, speaking English, cohabitation, having children, having poor health, contact with father, lived home at age 16, unemployment rate at age 14, age of father, father’s education, mother’s education, on respondents whose father did not work or worked in a lower paying occupation. Standard errors are presented in parentheses. The sample consists of 472 young adults whose fathers did not work and the counterfactuals are constructed based on 856 young adults whose fathers worked in lower paying occupations. The direct effect is the difference between the observed proportion of employment and the counterfactual, taking the value on the mediator into account. The % effect father explained is the % change in the estimated effect of father’s worklessness when the mediator is taken into account as opposed to when it is left out.