title: Cross-dressing

text: A variety of historical figures are known to have cross-dressed to varying degrees. Many women found they had to disguise themselves as men in order to participate in the wider world. For example, Margaret King cross-dressed in the early 19th century to attend medical school, as none would accept female students. A century later, Vita Sackville-West dressed as a young soldier in order to "walk out" with her girlfriend Violet Keppel, to avoid the street harassment that two women would have faced. The prohibition on women wearing male garb, once strictly applied, still has echoes today in some Western societies which require girls and women to wear skirts, for example as part of school uniform or office dress codes. In some countries, even in casual settings, women are still prohibited from wearing traditionally male clothing. Sometimes all trousers, no matter how loose and long, are automatically considered "indecent", which may render their wearer subject to severe punishment, as in the case of Lubna al-Hussein in Sudan in 2009.


title: Cross-dressing

text: In many countries, cross-dressing was illegal under laws that identified it as indecent or immoral. Many such laws were challenged in the late 1900s giving people the right to freedom of gender expression with regard to their clothing.


title: Cross-dressing

text: For instance, from 1840 forward, United States saw state and city laws forbidding people from appearing in public while dressed in clothes that do not associate with their assigned sex. The goal of this wave of policies was to create a tool that would enforce a normative gender narrative, targeting multiple gender identities across the gender spectrum. WIth the progression of time, styles, and societal trends, it became even more difficult to draw the line between what was cross-dressing or not. Only recently have these laws changed. As recently as 2011, it was still possible for a man to get arrested for “impersonating a woman” — a vestige of the 19th century laws. Even with this, legal issues surrounding cross-dressing perpetuated all throughout the mid 20th century. During this time period, police would often reference laws that did not exist or laws that have been repealed in order to target the LGBTQ+ community.


title: Cross-dressing

text: This extends beyond the United States: There still remains 13 UN member States that explicitly criminalize transgender individuals, and there exist even more countries that use a great deal of diverse laws to target them. The third edition of the Trans Legal Mapping Report, done by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association found that an especially common method to target these individuals is through cross-dressing regulations. For instance, only in 2014 did we see change in Malaysia as an appeal court finally overturned a state law prohibiting Muslim men from cross-dressing as women.


title: Cross-dressing

text: There are many different kinds of cross-dressing and many different reasons why an individual might engage in cross-dressing behavior. Some people cross-dress as a matter of comfort or style, a personal preference for clothing associated with the opposite gender. Some people cross-dress to shock others or challenge social norms; others will limit their cross-dressing to underwear, so that it is not apparent. Some people attempt to pass as a member of the opposite gender in order to gain access to places or resources they would not otherwise be able to reach.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Gender disguise has been used by women and girls to pass as male, and by men and boys to pass as female. Gender disguise has also been used as a plot device in storytelling, particularly in narrative ballads, and is a recurring motif in literature, theater, and film. Historically, some women have cross-dressed to take up male-dominated or male-exclusive professions, such as military service. Conversely, some men have cross-dressed to escape from mandatory military service or as a disguise to assist in political or social protest, as men in Wales did in the Rebecca Riots and when conducting Ceffyl Pren as a form of mob justice.


title: Cross-dressing

text: One famous case of gender disguise was when Bernard Boursicot, a French diplomat, was caught in a honeypot trap (seducing him to participate in Chinese espionage) by Shi Pei Pu, a male Peking opera singer who performed female roles, whom Boursicot believed to be female. This espionage case became something of a cause célèbre in France in 1986, as Boursicot and Shi were brought to trial, owing to the nature of the unusual sexual subterfuge alleged.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Some girls in Afghanistan, even after the fall of the Taliban, were still disguised by their families as boys. This is known as "bacha posh".


title: Cross-dressing

text: Single-sex theatrical troupes often have some performers who cross-dress to play roles written for members of the opposite sex (travesti and trouser roles). Cross-dressing, particularly the depiction of males wearing dresses, is often used for comic effect onstage and on-screen.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Boy player refers to children who performed in Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the adult companies and performed the female roles as women did not perform on the English stage in this period. Others worked for children's companies in which all roles, not just the female ones, were played by boys.


title: Cross-dressing

text: In an effort to clamp down on kabuki’s popularity, women's kabuki, known as , was banned in 1629 in Japan for being too erotic. Following this ban, young boys began performing in , which was also soon banned. Thus adult men play female roles in kabuki.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Dan is the general name for female roles in Chinese opera, often referring to leading roles. They may be played by male or female actors. In the early years of Peking opera, all roles were played by men, but this practice is no longer common in any Chinese opera genre.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Drag is a special form of performance art based on the act of cross-dressing. A drag queen is usually a male-assigned person who performs as an exaggeratedly feminine character, in heightened costuming sometimes consisting of a showy dress, high-heeled shoes, obvious make-up, and wig. A drag queen may imitate famous female film or pop-music stars. A faux queen is a female-assigned person employing the same techniques. A drag king is a counterpart of the drag queen - a female-assigned person who adopts a masculine persona in performance or imitates a male film or pop-music star. Some female-assigned people undergoing gender reassignment therapy also self-identify as 'drag kings'.


title: Cross-dressing

text: The modern activity of battle reenactments has raised the question of women passing as male soldiers. In 1989, Lauren Burgess dressed as a male soldier in a U.S. National Park Service reenactment of the Battle of Antietam, and was ejected after she was discovered to be a woman. Burgess sued the Park Service for sexual discrimination. The case spurred spirited debate among Civil War buffs. In 1993, a federal judge ruled in Burgess's favor.


title: Cross-dressing

text: "Wigging" refers to the practice of male stunt doubles taking the place of an actress, parallel to "paint downs", where white stunt doubles are made up to resemble black actors. Female stunt doubles have begun to protest this norm of "historical sexism", saying that it restricts their already limited job possibilities.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Cross-dressing is a traditional popular trope in British comedy. The pantomime dame in British pantomime dates from the 19th century, which is part of the theatrical tradition of female characters portrayed by male actors in drag. Widow Twankey (Aladdin's mother) is a popular pantomime dame: in 2004 Ian McKellen played the role.


title: Cross-dressing

text: The Monty Python comedy troupe donned frocks and makeup, playing female roles while speaking in falsetto. Character comics such as Benny Hill and Dick Emery drew upon several female identities. In the BBC's long-running sketch show "The Dick Emery Show" (broadcast from 1963 to 1981), Emery played Mandy, a busty peroxide blonde whose catchphrase, "Ooh, you are awful ... but I like you!", was given in response to a seemingly innocent remark made by her interviewer, but perceived by her as ribald double entendre. The popular tradition of cross dressing in British comedy extended to the 1984 music video for Queen's "I Want to Break Free" where the band parody several female characters from the soap opera "Coronation Street".


title: Cross-dressing

text: A transvestic fetishist is a person who cross-dresses as part of a sexual fetish. According to the fourth edition of "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", this fetishism was limited to heterosexual men; however, DSM-5 does not have this restriction, and opens it to women and men, regardless of their sexual orientation.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Sometimes either member of a heterosexual couple will cross-dress in order to arouse the other. For example, the male might wear skirts or lingerie and/or the female will wear boxers or other male clothing. (See also forced feminization)


title: Cross-dressing

text: Some people who cross-dress may endeavor to project a complete impression of belonging to another gender, including mannerisms, speech patterns, and emulation of sexual characteristics. This is referred to as passing or "trying to pass," depending how successful the person is. An observer who sees through the cross-dresser's attempt to pass is said to have "read" or "clocked" them. There are videos, books, and magazines on how a man may look more like a woman.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Others may choose to take a mixed approach, adopting some feminine traits and some masculine traits in their appearance. For instance, a man might wear both a dress and a beard. This is sometimes known as "genderfuck". In a broader context, cross-dressing may also refer to other actions undertaken to pass as a particular sex, such as packing (accentuating the male crotch bulge) or, the opposite, tucking (concealing the male crotch bulge).


title: Cross-dressing

text: The actual determination of cross-dressing is largely socially constructed. For example, in Western society, trousers have long been adopted for usage by women, and it is no longer regarded as cross-dressing. In cultures where men have traditionally worn skirt-like garments such as the kilt or sarong, these are not seen as women's clothing, and wearing them is not seen as cross-dressing for men. As societies are becoming more global in nature, both men's and women's clothing are adopting styles of dress associated with other cultures.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Cosplaying may also involve cross-dressing, for some females may wish to dress as a male, and vice versa (see Crossplay (cosplay)). Breast binding (for females) is not uncommon and is one of the things likely needed to cosplay a male character.


title: Cross-dressing

text: In most parts of the world it remains socially disapproved for men to wear clothes traditionally associated with women. Attempts are occasionally made, e.g. by fashion designers, to promote the acceptance of skirts as everyday wear for men. Cross-dressers have complained that society permits women to wear pants or jeans and other masculine clothing, while condemning any man who wants to wear clothing sold for women.


title: Cross-dressing

text: While creating a more feminine figure, male cross-dressers will often utilize different types and styles of breast forms, which are silicone prostheses traditionally used by women who have undergone mastectomies to recreate the visual appearance of a breast.


title: Cross-dressing

text: While most male cross-dressers utilize clothing associated with modern women, some are involved in subcultures that involve dressing as little girls or in vintage clothing. Some such men have written that they enjoy dressing as femininely as possible, so they wear frilly dresses with lace and ribbons, bridal gowns complete with veils, as well as multiple petticoats, corsets, girdles and/or garter belts with nylon stockings.


title: Cross-dressing

text: The term "underdressing" is used by male cross-dressers to describe wearing female undergarments such as panties under their male clothes. The famous low-budget film-maker Edward D. Wood, Jr. (who also went out in public dressed in drag as "Shirley", his female alter ego) said he often wore women's underwear under his military uniform as a Marine during World War II. "Female masking" is a form of cross-dressing in which men wear masks that present them as female.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Cross-dressers may begin wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex in childhood, using the clothes of a sibling, parent, or friend. Some parents have said they allowed their children to cross-dress and, in many cases, the child stopped when they became older. The same pattern often continues into adulthood, where there may be confrontations with a spouse, partner, family member or friend. Married cross-dressers can experience considerable anxiety and guilt if their spouse objects to their behavior.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Sometimes because of guilt or other reasons cross-dressers dispose of all their clothing, a practice called "purging", only to start collecting the other gender's clothing again.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Celebrations of cross-dressing occur in widespread cultures. The Abissa festival in Côte d'Ivoire, Ofudamaki in Japan, and Kottankulangara Festival in India are all examples of this.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Advocacy for social change has done much to relax the constrictions of gender roles on men and women, but they are still subject to prejudice from some people. It is noticeable that as being transgender becomes more socially accepted as a normal human condition, the prejudices against cross-dressing are changing quite quickly, just as the similar prejudices against homosexuals have changed rapidly in recent decades.


title: Cross-dressing

text: The reason it is so hard to have statistics for female cross-dressers is that the line where cross-dressing stops and cross-dressing begins has become blurred, whereas the same line for men is as well defined as ever. This is one of the many issues being addressed by third wave feminism as well as the modern-day masculist movement.


title: Cross-dressing

text: The general culture has very mixed views about cross-dressing. A woman who wears her husband's shirt to bed is considered attractive, while a man who wears his wife's nightgown to bed may be considered transgressive. Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo was considered very erotic; Jack Lemmon in a dress was considered ridiculous. All this may result from an overall gender role rigidity for males; that is, because of the prevalent gender dynamic throughout the world, men frequently encounter discrimination when deviating from masculine gender norms, particularly violations of heteronormativity. A man's adoption of feminine clothing is often considered a going down in the gendered social order whereas a woman's adoption of what are traditionally men's clothing (at least in the English-speaking world) has less of an impact because women have been traditionally subordinate to men, unable to affect serious change through style of dress. Thus when a male cross-dresser puts on his clothes, he transforms into the quasi-female and thereby becomes an embodiment of the conflicted gender dynamic. Following the work of Judith Butler, gender proceeds along through ritualized performances, but in male cross-dressing it becomes a performative "breaking" of the masculine and a "subversive repetition" of the feminine.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Psychoanalysts today do not regard cross-dressing by itself as a psychological problem, unless it interferes with a person's life. "For instance," said Dr. Joseph Merlino, senior editor of "Freud at 150: 21st Century Essays on a Man of Genius", "[suppose that]...I'm a cross-dresser and I don't want to keep it confined to my circle of friends, or my party circle, and I want to take that to my wife and I don't understand why she doesn't accept it, or I take it to my office and I don't understand why they don't accept it, then it's become a problem because it's interfering with my relationships and environment."


title: Cross-dressing

text: Cross-Dressing today is much more common and normalized thanks to trends such as camp fashion and androgynous fashion. These trends have long histories but have recently been popularized thanks to major designers, fashion media, and celebrities today.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Camp is a style of fashion that has had a long history extending all the way back to the Victorian era to the modern era. During the Victorian era up until the mid-20th century, it was defined as an exaggerated and flamboyant style of dressing. This was typically associated with ideas of effeminacy, de-masculization, and homosexuality. As the trend entered the 20th century, it also developed an association with a lack of conduct, creating the connotation that those who engaged in Camp are unrefined, improper, distasteful, and, essentially, undignified. Though this was its former understanding, Camp has now developed a new role in the fashion industry. It is considered a fashion style that has “failed seriousness” and has instead become a fun way of self-expression. Thanks to its integration with high fashion and extravagance, Camp is now seen as a high art form of absurdity: including loud, vibrant, bold, fun, and empty frivolity.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Camp is often used in drag culture as a method of exaggerating or inversing traditional conceptions of what it means to be feminine. In actuality, the QTPOC community has had a large impact on Camp. This is exhibited by ballroom culture, camp/glamour queens, Black '70s funk, Caribbean Carnival costumes, Blaxploitation movies, "pimp/player fashion," and more. This notion has also been materialized by camp icons such as Josephine Baker and RuPaul.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Androgynous fashion is described as neither masculine nor feminine rather it is the embodiment of a gender inclusive and sexually neutral fashion of expression. The general understanding of androgynous fashion is mixing both masculine and feminine pieces with the goal of producing a look that has no visual differentiations between one gender or another. This look is achieved by masking the general body so that one cannot identify the biological sex of an individual given the silhouette of the clothing pieces: Therefore, many androgynous looks include looser, baggier clothing that can conceal curves in the female body or using more “feminine” fabrics and prints for men.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Both of these style forms have been normalized and popularized by celebrities such as Harry Styles, Timothée Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Princess Diana, and more. These styles have also been adopted by fashion designers as well including Telfar, One DNA, Toogood, and more.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Beyond fashion, cross-dressing in non-Western countries have not fully outgrown the negative connotations that is has in the West. For instance, many Eastern and Southeastern Asian countries have a narrative of discrimination and stigma against LGBTQ and cross-dressing individuals. This is especially evident in the post-pandemic world. During this time, it was clear to see the failures of these governments to provide sufficient support to these individuals due to a lack of legal services, lack of job opportunity, and more. For instance, to be able to receive government aid, these individuals need to be able to quickly change their legal name, gender, and other information on official ID documents. This fault augmented the challenged of income loss, food insecurity, safe housing, healthcare, and more for many trans and cross-dressing individuals. This was especially pertinent as many of these individuals relied on entertainment and sex work for income. With the pandemic removing these job opportunities, the stigmatisation and discrimination against these individuals only increased, especially in Southeast Asian countries.


title: Cross-dressing

text: On the other hand, we’ve seen some Asian countries grow to be more accepting of cross-dressing as modernization has increased. For instance, among Japan’s niche communities there exists the otokonoko. This is a group of male-assigned individuals who engage in female cross-dressing as a form of gender expression. This trend originated with manga and grew with an increase in maid cafes, cosplaying, and more in the 2010s. With the normalization of this through cosplay, cross-dressing has become a large part of otaku and anime culture.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Women dressed as men, and less often men dressed as women, is a common trope in fiction and folklore. For example, in Norse myth, Thor disguised himself as Freya. These disguises were also popular in Gothic fiction, such as in works by Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas, père, and Eugène Sue, and in a number of Shakespeare's plays, such as "Twelfth Night". In "The Wind in the Willows", Toad dresses as a washerwoman, and in "The Lord of the Rings", Éowyn pretends to be a man.


title: Cross-dressing

text: In science fiction, fantasy and women's literature, this literary motif is occasionally taken further, with literal transformation of a character from male to female or vice versa. Virginia Woolf's "" focuses on a man who becomes a woman, as does a warrior in Peter S. Beagle's "The Innkeeper's Song"; while in Geoff Ryman's "The Warrior Who Carried Life", Cara magically transforms herself into a man.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Other popular examples of gender disguise include "Madame Doubtfire" (published as "Alias Madame Doubtfire" in the United States) and its movie adaptation "Mrs. Doubtfire", featuring a man disguised as a woman. Similarly, the movie "Tootsie" features Dustin Hoffman disguised as a woman, while the movie "The Associate" features Whoopi Goldberg disguised as a man.


title: Cross-dressing

text: The 10th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems lists "dual-role transvestism" (non-sexual cross-dressing) and "fetishistic transvestism" (cross-dressing for sexual pleasure) as disorders. Both listings were removed for the 11th edition.


title: Cross-dressing

text: Transvestic fetishism is a paraphilia and a psychiatric diagnosis in the DSM-5 version of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders".


title: Kumiho

text: A kumiho or gumiho (, literally "nine-tailed fox") is a creature that appears in the folktales on East Asia and legends of Korea. It is similar to the Chinese and the Japanese . It can freely transform, among other things, into a beautiful woman often set out to seduce boys, and eat their liver or heart (depending on the legend). There are numerous tales in which the appears, several of which can be found in the encyclopedic "Compendium of Korean Oral Literature" ().


title: Kumiho

text: The old Chinese text Classic of Mountains and Seas, the earliest record to document the nine-tailed fox, mentioned that the fox with nine tails came from and lived in the country called Qingqiu (靑丘) three hundreds miles east, the term meaning "green hill" interpreted as the country or region of the east and was later historically used to refer to the region of Korea at least since the era during the Three Kingdoms of Korea. However, the name of Gojoseon (called Joseon in the record), the Korean kingdom that existed along with other minor states of the Korean peninsula at the time, was separately introduced in the same record.


title: Kumiho

text: Kumiho and other versions of the nine-tailed fox myths and folklores share similar concept. All explain fox spirits as being the result of great longevity or the accumulation of energy, said to be foxes who have lived for a thousand years, and give them the power of shapeshifting, usually appearing in the guise of a woman. However, while China's "huli jing" and Japan's "kitsune" are often depicted as either good, evil or neutral, the "kumiho" is almost always treated as a malignant figure who feasts on human flesh. It is unclear at which point in time Koreans began viewing the "kumiho" as a purely evil creature, since many ancient texts mention the benevolent "kumiho" assisting humans (and even make mentions of wicked humans tricking kind but naïve "kumiho").


title: Kumiho

text: In later literature, "kumiho" were often depicted as bloodthirsty half-fox, half-human creatures that wandered cemeteries at night, digging human hearts out from graves. The fairy tale "The Fox Sister" depicts a fox spirit preying on a family for their livers.


title: Kumiho

text: The most distinctive feature that separates the kumiho from its two counterparts (Japanese kitsune, and Chinese huli jing) is the existence of a 'yeowoo guseul' (여우구슬, literally meaning fox marble/bead) which is said to consist of knowledge. According to Korean mythology, the yeowoo guseul provides power to the kumiho and knowledge (and intelligence) to people if they can steal and swallow one. The kumiho can absorb humans' energy with it. The method of absorbing energy with the "yeowoo guseul" resembles a "deep kiss" (i.e. a kiss using a tongue). The kumiho sends the yeowoo guseul into people's mouths and then retakes it with their tongues. If that person swallows the yeowoo guseul, however, and then observes "sky, land, and people", each observation gives the observer preternatural knowledge. But the person fails to watch the "sky" in most tales, so they get a special ability but not the most important one.


title: Kumiho

text: Most legends state that while a "gumiho" was capable of changing its appearance, there is still something persistently fox-like about it (i.e. a foxy face, a set of ears, or the tell-tale nine tails) or a magical way of forcing; its countenance changes, but its nature does not. In "Transformation of the Kumiho" (구미호의 변신), a kumiho transforms into the identical likeness of a bride at a wedding and is only discovered when her clothes are removed. "Bakh Mun-su and the Kumiho" (박문수와 구미호) records an encounter that Pak Munsu has with a girl, living alone in the woods, that has a foxy appearance. In "The Maiden who Discovered a Kumiho through a Chinese Poem" (한시로 구미호를 알아낸 처녀), the kumiho is ultimately revealed when a hunting dog catches the scent of a fox and attacks. Although they have the ability to change forms, the true identity of a kumiho was said to be zealously guarded by the kumiho themselves. Some tales say that if a kumiho abstains from killing and eating humans for a thousand days, it can become human.


title: Kumiho

text: Much like changelings, werewolves or vampires in Western lore, there are always variations on the myth depending on the liberties that each story takes with the legend. One version of the mythology, however, holds that with enough will, a "kumiho" could further ascend from its yogoe (spirit) state, become permanently human and lose its evil character. Explanations of how this could be achieved vary, but sometimes include aspects such as refraining from killing or tasting meat for a thousand days, or obtaining a cintamani and making sure that the Yeoiju saw the full moon at least every month during the ordeal. Unlike Yeoiju-wielding dragons, "kumiho" were not thought to be capable of omnipotence or creation at will, since they were lesser creatures.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye () or Sigurd Áslaugsson was a semi-legendary Viking warrior and Danish king active from the mid to late 9th century. According to multiple saga sources and Scandinavian histories from the 12th century and later, he is one of the sons of the legendary Viking Ragnar Lodbrok and Áslaug. His historical prototype might have been the Danish King Sigfred who ruled briefly in the 870s. Norwegian kings' genealogies of the Middle Ages name him as an ancestor of Harald Fairhair and used his mother's supposed ancestry the Völsung to create an ancestry between Harald and his descendants and Odin.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: "Snake-in-the-eye" as part of Sigurd's name denoted a physical characteristic. He was born with a mark in his eye, described as the image of the ouroboros (a snake biting its own tail).


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: According to "Ragnar Lothbrok’s saga", while Sigurd was just a boy, his half-brothers Eric and Agnar were killed by Swedish king Eysteinn Beli (also known as Östen). When Áslaug heard the news of Eric and Agnar's death, even though she wasn't their mother, she cried blood and asked the other sons of Ragnar to avenge their dead brothers. Because the Swedish king controlled Uppsala and a holy cow named Sibilja, Ivar the Boneless believed gods were on Eysteinn's side and feared the magic that ruled there. However, when his younger brother, the three-year-old Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, wanted to attack Eysteinn, the brothers changed their minds. Sigurd's foster-father assembled five longships for him. Hvitserk and Björn Ironside mustered 14, and Aslaug and Ivar the Boneless marshaled 10 ships each, and together they took vengeance upon Eysteinn.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus relates that Sigurd, as a young man, was close to his father and sojourned for a time in Scotland and the Scottish Islands. After Ragnar's Viking army had slain the local earls, Sigurd and his brother Radbard were appointed sub-rulers of these territories. Later in life Sigurd and his brothers accompanied Ragnar on a hazardous expedition through Rus' to the Hellespont.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: Most of the legendary sources say that King Ælla of Northumbria killed Ragnar Lothbrok, in about 865, by having him thrown into a pit of snakes. According to traditional accounts, Ragnar is reputed to have exclaimed as he was dying: "How the young pigs would grunt if they knew what the old boar suffers!" Sigurd and his siblings were reportedly informed of their father's fate by an envoy from Ælla. As he heard the news, Sigurd was supposedly so affected that he cut himself to the bone with a knife he held in his hand; his brother Björn Ironside supposedly gripped a spear so tightly that the imprint of his fingers was left in the wood. Sigurd and his brothers swore they would avenge Ragnar's death.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: In 865–866, the Viking leaders Ivar the Boneless and Ubbe crossed the North Sea with a "stor hær" ("Great Army"). Traditional accounts claim that all the surviving sons of Ragnar apart from Ivar launched a first attack on Ælla's kingdom, which failed. Sigurd's brother, Ivar the Boneless, devised a strategy in which the Great Heathen Army occupied and sacked York, to provoke Ælla into engaging on the Vikings' terms. Under Ivar's plan, the Vikings feigned retreat, leading Ælla to underestimate them and become encircled. According to "Ragnarssona þáttr" ("The Tale of Ragnar's Sons", part of the "Sagas of Ragnar Lothbrok"), Ælla was captured alive and executed afterwards by blood eagle.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: "Ragnarssona þáttr" states that when his father died, Sigurd inherited Zealand, Scania, Halland, the Danish islands, and Viken. It is also possible he was for a time co-ruler of Denmark with his brother Halfdan, because Frankish sources mention certain Sigfred and Halfdan as rulers in 873 – the names Sigurd and Sigfred were often mixed up in Nordic literature. He could have succeeded his brother Halfdan Ragnarsson as the sole king of Denmark in about 877, when Halfdan fell in battle in the Irish Sea. A Danish Viking king called Sigfred, who appears to have become landless by this time, was killed in West Francia in 887; he is quite possibly the same person. Sigurd married Blaeja, the daughter of king Ælla of Northumbria and they had two children, Harthacanute and Áslaug Sigurðardóttir, who was married to Helge of the Dagling lineage.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: Helge may have briefly succeeded his purported father-in-law as king of Denmark before being overthrown by Olof, a Viking chief who swept down from Sweden in about the year 900.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: The "Ragnarssona þáttr" states that Danish king Harthacanute was a son of Sigurd. However, the 11th century chronicler Adam of Bremen mentions Hardegon (probably Harthacanute) as the son of a certain Sven. Hardegon or Harthacanute succeeded Sigtrygg Gnupasson as the king of part of Denmark (probably Jutland, but according to later tradition Zealand, Scania and Halland) in about 916. According to the "Ragnarssona þáttr", he nevertheless lost Viken (Oslofjord) that had been part of the Danish realm in the 9th century. He was the father of Gorm the Old, the king of Denmark. Gorm succeeded his father as king and married Thyra.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: Gorm's son, Harald Bluetooth succeeded his father as king and married possibly three times with Gunhild, Tove and Gyrid. Harald had a son named Sweyn Forkbeard. Sweyn succeeded his father as king and married Gunhild (Świętosława of Poland). They had a son named Cnut the Great. Sweyn also ruled England in his lifetime and established the Danish Empire. When Sweyn died, his elder son Harald Svendsen became the king of Denmark, while England's former king, Ethelred, reclaimed the throne. Following Harald's death, his brother Cnut the Great became king, re-established the Danish North Sea Empire. He married Emma of Normandy with whom he had a son named Harthacnut. When Cnut died (and after the brothers of Harthacnut also had died), Harthacnut became king of Denmark and England. Upon his death, Edward the Confessor became ruler of England in 1042. Sweyn Forkbeard also had a daughter, Estrid, from whom all ruling kings and queens of Denmark after 1047 descend.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: Sigurd's daughter Áslaug, as mentioned above, married Helgi the Sharp of the Dagling dynasty. They had a son named Sigurd Hart, who married a woman named Ingeborg. Sigurd Hart and Ingeborg had children named Guttorm Sigurdsson and Ragnhild Sigurdsdotter. When Sigurd Hart's uncle, king Fróði of Ringerike died, Sigurd Hart supposedly went to Norway to succeed him as king of Ringerike.


title: Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye

text: Sigurd Snake-in-the-eye features prominently in the History Channel's historical drama television series "Vikings" played by David Lindström.


title: Luxor

text: Luxor () is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of "Thebes".


title: Luxor

text: Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-air museum", as the ruins of the Egyptian temple complexes at Karnak and Luxor stand within the modern city. Immediately opposite, across the River Nile, lie the monuments, temples and tombs of the west bank Theban Necropolis, which includes the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. Thousands of tourists from all around the world arrive annually to visit Luxor's monuments, contributing greatly to the economy of the modern city.


title: Luxor

text: The population of Luxor is 422,407 (2021), with an area of approximately . It is the capital of Luxor Governorate. It is among the oldest inhabited cities in the world.


title: Luxor

text: The name "Luxor" (, pronounced , , ) derives from the Arabic "qasr" (), meaning "castle" or "palace". It may be equivalent to the Greek and Coptic toponym τὰ Τρία Κάστρα "ta tria kastra" and ⲡϣⲟⲙⲧ ⲛ̀ⲕⲁⲥⲧⲣⲟⲛ "pshomt enkastron" respectively, which both mean "three castles".)


title: Luxor

text: The Sahidic Coptic name "Pape" (, pronounced ), comes from Demotic "Ỉp.t" "the adyton", which, in turn, is derived from the Egyptian. The Greek forms "Ἀπις" and "Ὠφιεῖον" come from the same source. The Egyptian village Aba al-Waqf (, ) shares the same etymology.


title: Luxor

text: The Greek name is Thebes () or Diospolis. The Egyptian name of the city is "Waset", also known as "Nut" ()i-pA-t:pr and i-p:t-O45-M24-t:N21-Z1


title: Luxor

text: Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the great capital of Upper Egypt during the New Kingdom, and the glorious city of Amun, later to become the god Amun-Ra. The city was regarded in the ancient Egyptian texts as "wAs.t" (approximate pronunciation: "Waset"), which meant "city of the sceptre", and later in Demotic Egyptian as "ta jpt" (conventionally pronounced as "tA ipt" and meaning "the shrine/temple", referring to the jpt-swt, the temple now known by its Arabic name Karnak, meaning "fortified village"), which the ancient Greeks adapted as Thebai and the Romans after them as Thebae. Thebes was also known as "the city of the 100 gates", sometimes being called "southern Heliopolis" ('Iunu-shemaa' in Ancient Egyptian), to distinguish it from the city of Iunu or Heliopolis, the main place of worship for the god Ra in the north. It was also often referred to as "niw.t," which simply means "city", and was one of only three cities in Egypt for which this noun was used (the other two were Memphis and Heliopolis); it was also called "niw.t rst," "southern city", as the southernmost of them.


title: Luxor

text: The importance of the city started as early as the 11th Dynasty, when the town grew into a thriving city. Montuhotep II, who united Egypt after the troubles of the First Intermediate Period, brought stability to the lands as the city grew in stature. The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom in their expeditions to Kush, in today's northern Sudan, and to the lands of Canaan, Phoenicia and Syria saw the city accumulate great wealth and rose to prominence, even on a world scale. Thebes played a major role in expelling the invading forces of the Hyksos from Upper Egypt, and from the time of the 18th Dynasty to the 20th Dynasty, the city had risen as the political, religious and military capital of Ancient Egypt.


title: Luxor

text: The city attracted peoples such as the Babylonians, the Mitanni, the Hittites of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), the Canaanites of Ugarit, the Phoenicians of Byblos and Tyre, the Minoans from the island of Crete. A Hittite prince from Anatolia even came to marry with the widow of Tutankhamun, Ankhesenamun. The political and military importance of the city, however, faded during the Late Period, with Thebes being replaced as political capital by several cities in Northern Egypt, such as Bubastis, Sais and finally Alexandria.


title: Luxor

text: However, as the city of the god Amun-Ra, Thebes remained the religious capital of Egypt until the Greek period. The main god of the city was Amun, who was worshipped together with his wife, the Goddess Mut, and their son Khonsu, the God of the moon. With the rise of Thebes as the foremost city of Egypt, the local god Amun rose in importance as well and became linked to the sun god Ra, thus creating the new 'king of gods' Amun-Ra. His great temple at Karnak, just north of Thebes, was the most important temple of Egypt right until the end of antiquity.


title: Luxor

text: Later, the city was attacked by Assyrian emperor Ashurbanipal who installed a new prince on the throne, Psamtik I. The city of Thebes was in ruins and fell in significance. However, Alexander the Great did arrive at the temple of Amun, where the statue of the god was transferred from Karnak during the Opet Festival, the great religious feast. Thebes remained a site of spirituality up to the Christian era, and attracted numerous Christian monks of the Roman Empire who established monasteries amidst several ancient monuments including the temple of Hatshepsut, now called Deir el-Bahri ("the northern monastery").


title: Luxor

text: In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the shrine of god Osiris- Ptah Neb, dating back to the 25th dynasty in the Temple of Karnak. According to archaeologist Essam Nagy, the material remains from the area contained clay pots, the lower part of a sitting statue and part of a stone panel showing an offering table filled with a sheep and a goose which were the symbols of the god Amun.


title: Luxor

text: On the same day in November 2018, two different discoveries were announced. One was by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities that had found a 13th-century tomb on the West Bank belonging to Thaw-Irkhet-If, the overseer of the mummification shrine at the temple of Mut, and his wife. Five months of excavation work until this point had revealed colorful scenes of the family and 1,000 funerary statues or ushabti. The other discovery was of 1000 ushabti and two sarcophagi each containing a mummy in the TT33 complex by a joint team from the IFAO (French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, Cairo, Egypt) and the University of Strasbourg. One of the sarcophagi was opened in private by Egyptian antiquities officials, while the other, of a female 18th Dynasty woman named Thuya, was opened in front of international media.


title: Luxor

text: In October 2019, Egyptian archaeologists headed by Zahi Hawass revealed an ancient "industrial area" used to manufacture decorative artefacts, furniture and pottery for royal tombs. The site contained a big kiln to fire ceramics and 30 ateliers. According to Zahi Hawass, each atelier had a different aim – some of them were used to make pottery, others used to produce gold artefacts and others still to churn out furniture. About 75 meters below the valley, several items believed to have adorned wooden royal coffins, such as inlaid beads, silver rings and gold foil were unearthed. Some artefacts depicted the wings of deity Horus.


title: Luxor

text: In October 2019, the Egyptian archaeological mission unearthed thirty well-preserved wooden coffins (3,000-year-old) in front of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in El-Assasif Cemetery. The coffins contained mummies of twenty-three adult males, five adult females and two children, who are believed to be from the middle class. According to Hawass, mummies were decorated with mixed carvings and designs, including scenes from Egyptian gods, hieroglyphs, and the Book of the Dead, a series of spells that allowed the soul to navigate in the afterlife. Some of the coffins had the names of the dead engraved on them.


title: Luxor

text: On the 8th of April 2021, Egyptian archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass found Aten, a 3,400 years old "lost golden city" near Luxor. It is the largest known city from Ancient Egypt to be unearthed to date. The site was said by Betsy Bryan, professor of Egyptology at Johns Hopkins University to be "the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamen". The site is celebrated by the unearthing crew for showing a glimpse into the ordinary lives of living ancient Egyptians whereas past archaeological discoveries were from tombs and other burial sites. Many artefacts are found alongside the buildings such as pottery dated back to the reign of Amenhotep III, rings and everyday working tools. The site is not completely unearthed as of the 10th of April 2021.


title: Luxor

text: Luxor has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) like the rest of Egypt. Aswan and Luxor have the hottest summer days of any other city in Egypt. Aswan and Luxor have nearly the same climate. Luxor is one of the sunniest and driest cities in the world. Average high temperatures are above during summer (June, July, August). During the coolest month of the year, average high temperatures remain above while average low temperatures remain above .


title: Luxor

text: The climate of Luxor has precipitation levels lower than even most other places in the Sahara, with less than of average annual precipitation. The desert city is one of the driest ones in the world, and rainfall does not occur every year. The air in Luxor is more humid than Aswan but still very dry. There is an average relative humidity of 39.9%, with a maximum mean of 57% during winter and a minimum mean of 27% during summer.


title: Luxor

text: The climate of Luxor is extremely clear, bright and sunny year-round, in all seasons, with a low seasonal variation, with about some 4,000 hours of annual sunshine, very close to the maximum theoretical sunshine duration.


title: Luxor

text: In addition, Luxor, Minya, Sohag, Qena and Asyut have the widest difference of temperatures between days and nights of any city in Egypt, with almost difference.


title: Luxor

text: The hottest temperature recorded was on May 15, 1991 which was and the coldest temperature was on February 6, 1989 which was .


title: Luxor

text: The Coptic Catholic (Alexandrian Rite) minority established on November 26, 1895 an Eparchy (Eastern Catholic Diocese) of Luqsor (Luxor) alias Thebes, on territory split off from the Apostolic Vicariate of Egypt. Its episcopal see is a St. George cathedral in Luxor.


title: Luxor

text: In turn, it lost territory on August 10, 1947 to establish the Eparchy of Assiut and again on 14 September 1981 to establish Sohag.


title: Luxor

text: The economy of Luxor, like that of many other Egyptian cities, is heavily dependent upon tourism. Large numbers of people also work in agriculture, particularly sugarcane. There are also many industries, such as the pottery industry used in eating and many other uses.


title: Luxor

text: The local economy was hit by the Luxor massacre in 1997, in which a total of 64 people (including 59 visiting tourists) were killed, at the time the worst terrorist attack in Egypt (before the Sharm el-Sheikh terrorist attacks). The massacre reduced tourist numbers for several years. Following the 2011 Arab Spring, tourism to Egypt dropped significantly, again affecting local tourist markets. Nineteen Asian and European tourists died when a hot air balloon crashed early on Tuesday, February 26, 2013 near Luxor following a mid-air gas explosion. It was one of the worst accidents involving tourists in Egypt. The casualties included French, British, Hungarian, Japanese nationals and nine tourists from Hong Kong.


title: Luxor

text: To make up for shortfalls of income, many cultivate their own food. Goat's cheese, pigeons, subsidized and home-baked bread and homegrown tomatoes are commonplace among the majority of its residents.


title: Luxor

text: A controversial tourism development plan aims to transform Luxor into the biggest vast open-air museum. The master plan envisions new roads, five-star hotels, glitzy shops, and an IMAX theatre. The main attraction is an 11 million dollar project to unearth and restore the long Avenue of Sphinxes that once linked Luxor and Karnak temples. The ancient processional road was built by the pharaoh Amenhotep III and took its final form under Nectanebo I in 400 BCE. Over a thousand sphinx statues lined the road now being excavated which was covered by silt, homes, mosques and churches. Excavation started around 2004.


title: Luxor

text: On 18 April 2019, the Egyptian Government announced the discovery of a previously unopened coffin in Luxor, dated back to 18th dynasty of Upper and Lower Egypt. According to the Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anani, it is the biggest rock-cut tomb to be unearthed in the ancient city of Thebes. It is one of the largest, well-preserved tombs ever found near the ancient city of Luxor. On 24 November 2018, this discovery was preceded by the finding of a well-preserved mummy of a woman inside a previously unopened coffin dating back more than 3,000 years.


title: Luxor

text: A bridge was opened in 1998, a few kilometres upstream of the main town of Luxor, allowing ready land access from the east bank to the west bank. Traditionally river crossings have been the domain of several ferry services. The so-called 'local ferry' (also known as the 'National Ferry') continues to operate from a landing opposite the Temple of Luxor.


title: Luxor

text: Transport to sites on the west bank are serviced by taxi drivers who often approach ferry passengers. There are also local cars that reach some of the monuments for 2 L.E., although tourists rarely use them. Alternatively, motorboats line both banks of the Nile all day providing a quicker, but more expensive (50 L.E.), crossing to the other side.


title: Luxor

text: The city of Luxor on the east bank has several bus routes used mainly by locals. Tourists often rely on horse carriages, called "calèches", for transport or tours around the city. Taxis are plentiful, and reasonably priced, and since the government has decreed that taxis older than 20 years will not be relicensed, there are many modern air-conditioned cabs. Recently, new roads have been built in the city to cope with the growth in traffic.


title: Luxor

text: For domestic travel along the route of the Nile, a rail service operates several times a day. A morning train and sleeping train can be taken from the railway station situated around from Luxor Temple. The line runs between several major destinations, including Cairo to the north and Aswan to the south.


title: Luxor

text: Luxor University, founded in 2019, is a non-profit governmental university that provides programs and courses for students.


title: 2002 FIFA World Cup squads

text: At the 2002 FIFA World Cup, each national association was required to name a squad of 23 players, expanded from 22 in previous tournaments.


title: 2002 FIFA World Cup squads

text: Originally, the squad was named with Ariel Ortega given shirt number 23 and Roberto Bonano number 24, as the Argentine Football Association had decided to retire the number 10 shirt in honour of Diego Maradona. FIFA, however, insisted that all squads were assigned with numbers ranging only from 1–23, prompting Argentina to amend their squad list.


title: 2002 FIFA World Cup squads

text: Note: caps include those for USSR, CIS, and Russia, while those for other countries, such as Ukraine, are not counted.


title: 2002 FIFA World Cup squads

text: The Saudi Arabian squad was the only one made up entirely of players from their country's domestic league and the only one with no players from European clubs. The Cameroon squad were made up entirely of players employed by overseas clubs, the Irish squad was made up entirely by players in the English league. Although the Netherlands and Greece failed to qualify for the finals, their domestic leagues were represented by 18 and 10 players, respectively. Altogether, there were 43 national leagues who had players in the tournament.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment is measured by the unemployment rate, which is the number of people who are unemployed as a percentage of the labour force (the total number of people employed added to those unemployed).


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment and the status of the economy can be influenced by a country through, for example, fiscal policy. Furthermore, the monetary authority of a country, such as the central bank, can influence the availability and cost for money through its monetary policy.


title: Unemployment

text: In addition to theories of unemployment, a few categorisations of unemployment are used for more precisely modelling the effects of unemployment within the economic system. Some of the main types of unemployment include structural unemployment, frictional unemployment, cyclical unemployment, involuntary unemployment and classical unemployment. Structural unemployment focuses on foundational problems in the economy and inefficiencies inherent in labor markets, including a mismatch between the supply and demand of laborers with necessary skill sets. Structural arguments emphasize causes and solutions related to disruptive technologies and globalization. Discussions of frictional unemployment focus on voluntary decisions to work based on individuals' valuation of their own work and how that compares to current wage rates added to the time and effort required to find a job. Causes and solutions for frictional unemployment often address job entry threshold and wage rates.


title: Unemployment

text: According to the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO), there were 172 million people worldwide (or 5% of the reported global workforce) without work in 2018.


title: Unemployment

text: Because of the difficulty in measuring the unemployment rate by, for example, using surveys (as in the United States) or through registered unemployed citizens (as in some European countries), statistical figures such as the employment-to-population ratio might be more suitable for evaluating the status of the workforce and the economy if they were based on people who are registered, for example, as taxpayers.


title: Unemployment

text: The state of being without any work yet looking for work is called unemployment. Economists distinguish between various overlapping types of and theories of unemployment, including cyclical or Keynesian unemployment, frictional unemployment, structural unemployment and classical unemployment. Some additional types of unemployment that are occasionally mentioned are seasonal unemployment, hardcore unemployment, and hidden unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Though there have been several definitions of "voluntary" and "involuntary unemployment" in the economics literature, a simple distinction is often applied. Voluntary unemployment is attributed to the individual's decisions, but involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment (including the market structure, government intervention, and the level of aggregate demand) in which individuals operate. In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary since it reflects individual search behavior. Voluntary unemployment includes workers who reject low-wage jobs, but involuntary unemployment includes workers fired because of an economic crisis, industrial decline, company bankruptcy, or organizational restructuring.


title: Unemployment

text: On the other hand, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, and classical unemployment are largely involuntary in nature. However, the existence of structural unemployment may reflect choices made by the unemployed in the past, and classical (natural) unemployment may result from the legislative and economic choices made by labour unions or political parties.


title: Unemployment

text: The clearest cases of involuntary unemployment are those with fewer job vacancies than unemployed workers even when wages are allowed to adjust and so even if all vacancies were to be filled, some unemployed workers would still remain. That happens with cyclical unemployment, as macroeconomic forces cause microeconomic unemployment, which can boomerang back and exacerbate those macroeconomic forces.


title: Unemployment

text: Classical, natural, or real-wage unemployment, occurs when real wages for a job are set above the market-clearing level, causing the number of job-seekers to exceed the number of vacancies. On the other hand, most economists argue that as wages fall below a livable wage, many choose to drop out of the labour market and no longer seek employment. That is especially true in countries in which low-income families are supported through public welfare systems. In such cases, wages would have to be high enough to motivate people to choose employment over what they receive through public welfare. Wages below a livable wage are likely to result in lower labor market participation in the above-stated scenario. In addition, consumption of goods and services is the primary driver of increased demand for labor. Higher wages lead to workers having more income available to consume goods and services. Therefore, higher wages increase general consumption and as a result demand for labor increases and unemployment decreases.


title: Unemployment

text: Many economists have argued that unemployment increases with increased governmental regulation. For example, minimum wage laws raise the cost of some low-skill laborers above market equilibrium, resulting in increased unemployment as people who wish to work at the going rate cannot (as the new and higher enforced wage is now greater than the value of their labour). Laws restricting layoffs may make businesses less likely to hire in the first place, as hiring becomes more risky.


title: Unemployment

text: However, that argument overly simplifies the relationship between wage rates and unemployment by ignoring numerous factors that contribute to unemployment. Some, such as Murray Rothbard, suggest that even social taboos can prevent wages from falling to the market-clearing level.


title: Unemployment

text: In "Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in the Twentieth-Century America", economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway argue that the empirical record of wages rates, productivity, and unemployment in America validates classical unemployment theory. Their data shows a strong correlation between adjusted real wage and unemployment in the United States from 1900 to 1990. However, they maintain that their data does not take into account exogenous events.


title: Unemployment

text: Cyclical, deficient-demand, or Keynesian unemployment occurs when there is not enough aggregate demand in the economy to provide jobs for everyone who wants to work. Demand for most goods and services falls, less production is needed and consequently, fewer workers are needed, wages are sticky and do not fall to meet the equilibrium level, and unemployment results. Its name is derived from the frequent ups and downs in the business cycle, but unemployment can also be persistent, such as during the Great Depression.


title: Unemployment

text: With cyclical unemployment, the number of unemployed workers exceeds the number of job vacancies and so even if all open jobs were filled, some workers would still remain unemployed. Some associate cyclical unemployment with frictional unemployment because the factors that cause the friction are partially caused by cyclical variables. For example, a surprise decrease in the money supply may suddenly inhibit aggregate demand and thus inhibit labor demand.


title: Unemployment

text: Keynesian economists, on the other hand, see the lack of supply of jobs as potentially resolvable by government intervention. One suggested intervention involves deficit spending to boost employment and goods demand. Another intervention involves an expansionary monetary policy to increase the supply of money, which should reduce interest rates, which, in turn, should lead to an increase in non-governmental spending.


title: Unemployment

text: In demands based theory, it is possible to abolish cyclical unemployment by increasing the aggregate demand for products and workers. However, the economy eventually hits an "inflation barrier" that is imposed by the four other kinds of unemployment to the extent that they exist. Historical experience suggests that low unemployment affects inflation in the short term but not the long term. In the long term, the velocity of money supply measures such as the MZM ("money zero maturity", representing cash and equivalent demand deposits) velocity is far more predictive of inflation than low unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Some demand theory economists see the inflation barrier as corresponding to the natural rate of unemployment. The "natural" rate of unemployment is defined as the rate of unemployment that exists when the labour market is in equilibrium, and there is pressure for neither rising inflation rates nor falling inflation rates. An alternative technical term for that rate is the NAIRU, the "Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment". Whatever its name, demand theory holds that if the unemployment rate gets "too low," inflation will accelerate in the absence of wage and price controls (incomes policies).


title: Unemployment

text: One of the major problems with the NAIRU theory is that no one knows exactly what the NAIRU is, and it clearly changes over time. The margin of error can be quite high relative to the actual unemployment rate, making it hard to use the NAIRU in policy-making.


title: Unemployment

text: Another, normative, definition of full employment might be called the "ideal" unemployment rate. It would exclude all types of unemployment that represent forms of inefficiency. This type of "full employment" unemployment would correspond to only frictional unemployment (excluding that part encouraging the McJobs management strategy) and so would be very low. However, it would be impossible to attain this full-employment target using only demand-side Keynesian stimulus without getting below the NAIRU and causing accelerating inflation (absent incomes policies). Training programs aimed at fighting structural unemployment would help here.


title: Unemployment

text: To the extent that hidden unemployment exists, it implies that official unemployment statistics provide a poor guide to what unemployment rate coincides with "full employment."


title: Unemployment

text: Structural unemployment occurs when a labour market is unable to provide jobs for everyone who wants one because there is a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed workers and the skills needed for the available jobs. Structural unemployment is hard to separate empirically from frictional unemployment except that it lasts longer. As with frictional unemployment, simple demand-side stimulus will not work to abolish this type of unemployment easily.


title: Unemployment

text: Structural unemployment may also be encouraged to rise by persistent cyclical unemployment: if an economy suffers from longlasting low aggregate demand, it means that many of the unemployed become disheartened, and their skills (including job-searching skills) become "rusty" and obsolete. Problems with debt may lead to homelessness and a fall into the vicious circle of poverty.


title: Unemployment

text: That means that they may not fit the job vacancies that are created when the economy recovers. The implication is that sustained "high" demand may "lower" structural unemployment. This theory of persistence in structural unemployment has been referred to as an example of path dependence or "hysteresis."


title: Unemployment

text: Much "technological unemployment", caused by the replacement of workers by machines might be counted as structural unemployment. Alternatively, technological unemployment might refer to the way in which steady increases in labour productivity mean that fewer workers are needed to produce the same level of output every year. The fact that aggregate demand can be raised to deal with the problem suggests that the problem is instead one of cyclical unemployment. As indicated by Okun's law, the demand side must grow sufficiently quickly to absorb not only the growing labour force but also the workers who are made redundant by the increased labour productivity.


title: Unemployment

text: Seasonal unemployment may be seen as a kind of structural unemployment since it is linked to certain kinds of jobs (construction and migratory farm work). The most-cited official unemployment measures erase this kind of unemployment from the statistics using "seasonal adjustment" techniques. That results in substantial and permanent structural unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Frictional unemployment is the time period between jobs in which a worker searches for or transitions from one job to another. It is sometimes called "search unemployment" and can be voluntary, based on the circumstances of the unemployed individual. Frictional unemployment exists because both jobs and workers are heterogeneous, and a mismatch can result between the characteristics of supply and demand. Such a mismatch can be related to skills, payment, work-time, location, seasonal industries, attitude, taste, and a multitude of other factors. New entrants (such as graduating students) and re-entrants (such as former homemakers) can also suffer a spell of frictional unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Workers and employers accept a certain level of imperfection, risk or compromise, but usually not right away. They will invest some time and effort to find a better match. That is, in fact, beneficial to the economy since it results in a better allocation of resources. However, if the search takes too long and mismatches are too frequent, the economy suffers since some work will not get done. Therefore, governments will seek ways to reduce unnecessary frictional unemployment by multiple means including providing education, advice, training, and assistance such as daycare centers.


title: Unemployment

text: The frictions in the labour market are sometimes illustrated graphically with a Beveridge curve, a downward-sloping, convex curve that shows a correlation between the unemployment rate on one axis and the vacancy rate on the other. Changes in the supply of or demand for labour cause movements along the curve. An increase or decrease in labour market frictions will shift the curve outwards or inwards.


title: Unemployment

text: Official statistics often underestimate unemployment rates because of hidden, or covered, unemployment. That is the unemployment of potential workers that are not reflected in official unemployment statistics because of how the statistics are collected. In many countries, only those who have no work but are actively looking for work and/or qualifying for social security benefits are counted as unemployed. Those who have given up looking for work and sometimes those who are on government "retraining" programs are not officially counted among the unemployed even though they are not employed.


title: Unemployment

text: The statistic also does not count the "underemployed", those working fewer hours than they would prefer or in a job that fails to make good use of their capabilities. In addition, those who are of working age but are currently in full-time education are usually not considered unemployed in government statistics. Traditional unemployed native societies who survive by gathering, hunting, herding, and farming in wilderness areas may or may not be counted in unemployment statistics.


title: Unemployment

text: Long-term unemployment (LTU) is defined in European Union statistics as unemployment lasting for longer than one year (while unemployment lasting over two years is defined as "very long-term unemployment"). The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which reports current long-term unemployment rate at 1.9 percent, defines this as unemployment lasting 27 weeks or longer. Long-term unemployment is a component of structural unemployment, which results in long-term unemployment existing in every social group, industry, occupation, and all levels of education.


title: Unemployment

text: In 2015 the European Commission published recommendations on how to reduce long-term unemployment. These advised governments to:


title: Unemployment

text: In 2017–2019 it implemented the Long-Term Unemployment project to research solutions implemented by EU member states and produce a toolkit to guide government action. Progress was evaluated in 2019.


title: Unemployment

text: Marxists share the Keynesian viewpoint of the relationship between economic demand and employment, but with the caveat that the market system's propensity to slash wages and reduce labor participation on an enterprise level causes a requisite decrease in aggregate demand in the economy as a whole, causing crises of unemployment and periods of low economic activity before the capital accumulation (investment) phase of economic growth can continue. According to Karl Marx, unemployment is inherent within the unstable capitalist system and periodic crises of mass unemployment are to be expected. He theorized that unemployment was inevitable and even a necessary part of the capitalist system, with recovery and regrowth also part of the process. The function of the proletariat within the capitalist system is to provide a "reserve army of labour" that creates downward pressure on wages. This is accomplished by dividing the proletariat into surplus labour (employees) and under-employment (unemployed). This reserve army of labour fight among themselves for scarce jobs at lower and lower wages. At first glance, unemployment seems inefficient since unemployed workers do not increase profits, but unemployment is profitable within the global capitalist system because unemployment lowers wages which are costs from the perspective of the owners. From this perspective low wages benefit the system by reducing economic rents. Yet, it does not benefit workers; according to Karl Marx, the workers (proletariat) work to benefit the bourgeoisie through their production of capital. Capitalist systems unfairly manipulate the market for labour by perpetuating unemployment which lowers laborers' demands for fair wages. Workers are pitted against one another at the service of increasing profits for owners. As a result of the capitalist mode of production, Marx argued that workers experienced alienation and estrangement through their economic identity. According to Marx, the only way to permanently eliminate unemployment would be to abolish capitalism and the system of forced competition for wages and then shift to a socialist or communist economic system. For contemporary Marxists, the existence of persistent unemployment is proof of the inability of capitalism to ensure full employment.


title: Unemployment

text: There are also different ways national statistical agencies measure unemployment. The differences may limit the validity of international comparisons of unemployment data. To some degree, the differences remain despite national statistical agencies increasingly adopting the definition of unemployment of the International Labour Organization. To facilitate international comparisons, some organizations, such as the OECD, Eurostat, and International Labor Comparisons Program, adjust data on unemployment for comparability across countries.


title: Unemployment

text: Though many people care about the number of unemployed individuals, economists typically focus on the unemployment rate, which corrects for the normal increase in the number of people employed caused by increases in population and increases in the labour force relative to the population. The unemployment rate is expressed as a percentage and calculated as follows:


title: Unemployment

text: As defined by the International Labour Organization, "unemployed workers" are those who are currently not working but are willing and able to work for pay, currently available to work, and have actively searched for work.


title: Unemployment

text: Individuals who are actively seeking job placement must make the effort to be in contact with an employer, have job interviews, contact job placement agencies, send out resumes, submit applications, respond to advertisements, or some other means of active job searching within the prior four weeks. Simply looking at advertisements and not responding will not count as actively seeking job placement. Since not all unemployment may be "open" and counted by government agencies, official statistics on unemployment may not be accurate. In the United States, for example, the unemployment rate does not take into consideration those individuals who are not actively looking for employment, such as those who are still attending college.


title: Unemployment

text: According to the OECD, Eurostat, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labour force.


title: Unemployment

text: "An unemployed person is defined by Eurostat, according to the guidelines of the International Labour Organization, as:


title: Unemployment

text: The labour force, or workforce, includes both employed (employees and self-employed) and unemployed people but not the economically inactive, such as pre-school children, school children, students and pensioners.


title: Unemployment

text: The unemployment rate of an individual country is usually calculated and reported on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis by the National Agency of Statistics. Organisations like the OECD report statistics for all of its member states.


title: Unemployment

text: Certain countries provide unemployment compensation for a certain period of time for unemployed citizens who are registered as unemployed at the government employment agency. Furthermore, pension receivables or claims could depend on the registration at the government employment agency.


title: Unemployment

text: In many countries like in Germany, the unemployment rate is based on the number of people who are registered as unemployed. Other countries like the United States use a labour force survey to calculate the unemployment rate.


title: Unemployment

text: The primary measure of unemployment, U3, allows for comparisons between countries. Unemployment differs from country to country and across different time periods. For example, in the 1990s and 2000s, the United States had lower unemployment levels than many countries in the European Union, which had significant internal variation, with countries like the United Kingdom and Denmark outperforming Italy and France. However, large economic events like the Great Depression can lead to similar unemployment rates across the globe.


title: Unemployment

text: Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, defines unemployed as those persons between age 15 and 74 who are not working, have looked for work in the last four weeks, and are ready to start work within two weeks; this definition conforms to ILO standards. Both the actual count and the unemployment rate are reported. Statistical data are available by member state for the European Union as a whole (EU28) as well as for the eurozone (EA19). Eurostat also includes a long-term unemployment rate, which is defined as part of the unemployed who have been unemployed for more than one year.


title: Unemployment

text: The main source used is the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS). It collects data on all member states each quarter. For monthly calculations, national surveys or national registers from employment offices are used in conjunction with quarterly EU-LFS data. The exact calculation for individual countries, resulting in harmonized monthly data, depends on the availability of the data.


title: Unemployment

text: The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 17 years of age) by using two different labor force surveys conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or "Household Survey," conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. The survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.


title: Unemployment

text: The Current Employment Statistics survey (CES), or "Payroll Survey," conducts a survey based on a sample of 160,000 businesses and government agencies, which represent 400,000 individual employers. Since the survey measures only civilian nonagricultural employment, it does not calculate an unemployment rate, and it differs from the ILO unemployment rate definition. Both sources have different classification criteria and usually produce differing results. Additional data are also available from the government, such as the unemployment insurance weekly claims report available from the Office of Workforce Security, within the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides up-to-date numbers via a PDF linked here. The BLS also provides a readable concise current Employment Situation Summary, updated monthly.


title: Unemployment

text: The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates six alternate measures of unemployment, U1 to U6, which measure different aspects of unemployment:


title: Unemployment

text: "Note: "Marginally attached workers" are added to the total labour force for unemployment rate calculation for U4, U5, and U6." The BLS revised the CPS in 1994 and among the changes the measure representing the official unemployment rate was renamed U3 instead of U5. In 2013, Representative Hunter proposed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics use the U5 rate instead of the current U3 rate.


title: Unemployment

text: Statistics for the US economy as a whole hide variations among groups. For example, in January 2008, the US unemployment rates were 4.4% for adult men, 4.2% for adult women, 4.4% for Caucasians, 6.3% for Hispanics or Latinos (all races), 9.2% for African Americans, 3.2% for Asian Americans, and 18.0% for teenagers. Also, the US unemployment rate would be at least 2% higher if prisoners and jail inmates were counted.


title: Unemployment

text: The unemployment rate is included in a number of major economic indices including the US Conference Board's Index of Leading Indicators a macroeconomic measure of the state of the economy.


title: Unemployment

text: Some critics believe that current methods of measuring unemployment are inaccurate in terms of the impact of unemployment on people as these methods do not take into account the 1.5% of the available working population incarcerated in US prisons (who may or may not be working while they are incarcerated); those who have lost their jobs and have become discouraged over time from actively looking for work; those who are self-employed or wish to become self-employed, such as tradesmen or building contractors or information technology consultants; those who have retired before the official retirement age but would still like to work (involuntary early retirees); those on disability pensions who do not possess full health but still wish to work in occupations that suitable for their medical conditions; or those who work for payment for as little as one hour per week but would like to work full time.


title: Unemployment

text: The last people are "involuntary part-time" workers, those who are underemployed, such as a computer programmer who is working in a retail store until he can find a permanent job, involuntary stay-at-home mothers who would prefer to work, and graduate and professional school students who are unable to find worthwhile jobs after they graduated with their bachelor's degrees.


title: Unemployment

text: Internationally, some nations' unemployment rates are sometimes muted or appear less severe because of the number of self-employed individuals working in agriculture. Small independent farmers are often considered self-employed and so cannot be unemployed. That can impact non-industrialized economies, such as the United States and Europe in the early 19th century, since overall unemployment was approximately 3% because so many individuals were self-employed, independent farmers; however, non-agricultural unemployment was as high as 80%.


title: Unemployment

text: Many economies industrialize and so experience increasing numbers of non-agricultural workers. For example, the United States' non-agricultural labour force increased from 20% in 1800 to 50% in 1850 and 97% in 2000. The shift away from self-employment increases the percentage of the population that is included in unemployment rates. When unemployment rates between countries or time periods are compared, it is best to consider differences in their levels of industrialization and self-employment.


title: Unemployment

text: Additionally, the measures of employment and unemployment may be "too high." In some countries, the availability of unemployment benefits can inflate statistics by giving an incentive to register as unemployed. People who do not seek work may choose to declare themselves unemployed to get benefits; people with undeclared paid occupations may try to get unemployment benefits in addition to the money that they earn from their work.


title: Unemployment

text: However, in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and the European Union, unemployment is measured using a sample survey (akin to a Gallup poll). According to the BLS, a number of Eastern European nations have instituted labour force surveys as well. The sample survey has its own problems because the total number of workers in the economy is calculated based on a sample, rather than a census.


title: Unemployment

text: It is possible to be neither employed nor unemployed by ILO definitions by being outside of the "labour force." Such people have no job and are not looking for one. Many of them go to school or are retired. Family responsibilities keep others out of the labour force. Still others have a physical or mental disability that prevents them from participating in the labour force. Some people simply elect not to work and prefer to be dependent on others for sustenance.


title: Unemployment

text: Typically, employment and the labour force include only work that is done for monetary gain. Hence, a homemaker is neither part of the labour force nor unemployed. Also, full-time students and prisoners are considered to be neither part of the labour force nor unemployed. The number of prisoners can be important. In 1999, economists Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger estimated that increased incarceration lowered measured unemployment in the United States by 0.17% between 1985 and the late 1990s.


title: Unemployment

text: In particular, as of 2005, roughly 0.7% of the US population is incarcerated (1.5% of the available working population). Additionally, children, the elderly, and some individuals with disabilities are typically not counted as part of the labour force and so are not included in the unemployment statistics. However, some elderly and many disabled individuals are active in the labour market.


title: Unemployment

text: In the early stages of an economic boom, unemployment often rises. That is because people join the labour market (give up studying, start a job hunt, etc.) as a result of the improving job market, but until they have actually found a position, they are counted as unemployed. Similarly, during a recession, the increase in the unemployment rate is moderated by people leaving the labour force or being otherwise discounted from the labour force, such as with the self-employed.


title: Unemployment

text: For the fourth quarter of 2004, according to OECD (Employment Outlook 2005 ), normalized unemployment for men aged 25 to 54 was 4.6% in the US and 7.4% in France. At the same time and for the same population, the employment rate (number of workers divided by population) was 86.3% in the US and 86.7% in France. That example shows that the unemployment rate was 60% higher in France than in the US, but more people in that demographic were working in France than in the US, which is counterintuitive if it is expected that the unemployment rate reflects the health of the labour market.


title: Unemployment

text: Those deficiencies make many labour market economists prefer to look at a range of economic statistics such as labour market participation rate, the percentage of people between 15 and 64 who are currently employed or searching for employment, the total number of full-time jobs in an economy, the number of people seeking work as a raw number and not a percentage, and the total number of person-hours worked in a month compared to the total number of person-hours people would like to work. In particular, the National Bureau of Economic Research does not use the unemployment rate but prefers various employment rates to date recessions.


title: Unemployment

text: The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). In the West, during the later half of the 20th century, the labor force participation rate increased significantly because of an increase in the number of women entering the workplace.


title: Unemployment

text: In the United States, there have been four significant stages of women's participation in the labour force: increases in the 20th century and decreases in the 21st century. Male labor force participation decreased from 1953 to 2013. Since October 2013, men have been increasingly joining the labour force.


title: Unemployment

text: From the late 19th century to the 1920s, very few women worked outside the home. They were young single women who typically withdrew from the labor force at marriage unless family needed two incomes. Such women worked primarily in the textile manufacturing industry or as domestic workers. That profession empowered women and allowed them to earn a living wage. At times, they were a financial help to their families.


title: Unemployment

text: Between 1930 and 1950, female labor force participation increased primarily because of the increased demand for office workers, women's participation in the high school movement, and electrification, which reduced the time that was spent on household chores. From the 1950s to the early 1970s, most women were secondary earners working mainly as secretaries, teachers, nurses, and librarians (pink-collar jobs).


title: Unemployment

text: From the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, there was a period of revolution of women in the labor force brought on by various factors, many of which arose from the second-wave feminism movement. Women more accurately planned for their future in the work force by investing in more applicable majors in college that prepared them to enter and compete in the labor market. In the United States, the female labor force participation rate rose from approximately 33% in 1948 to a peak of 60.3% in 2000. As of April 2015, the female labor force participation is at 56.6%, the male labor force participation rate is at 69.4%, and the total is 62.8%.


title: Unemployment

text: A common theory in modern economics claims that the rise of women participating in the US labor force in the 1950s to the 1990s was caused by the introduction of a new contraceptive technology, birth control pills, as well as the adjustment of age of majority laws. The use of birth control gave women the flexibility of opting to invest and to advance their career while they maintained a relationship. By having control over the timing of their fertility, they were not running a risk of thwarting their career choices. However, only 40% of the population actually used the birth control pill.


title: Unemployment

text: That implies that other factors may have contributed to women choosing to invest in advancing their careers. One factor may be that an increasing number of men delayed the age of marriage, which allowed women to marry later in life without them worrying about the quality of older men. Other factors include the changing nature of work, with machines replacing physical labor, thus eliminating many traditional male occupations, and the rise of the service sector in which many jobs are gender neutral.


title: Unemployment

text: Another factor that may have contributed to the trend was the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. Such legislation diminished sexual discrimination and encouraged more women to enter the labor market by receiving fair remuneration to help raising families and children.


title: Unemployment

text: At the turn of the 21st century, the labor force participation began to reverse its long period of increase. Reasons for the change include a rising share of older workers, an increase in school enrollment rates among young workers, and a decrease in female labor force participation.


title: Unemployment

text: The labor force participation rate can decrease when the rate of growth of the population outweighs that of the employed and the unemployed together. The labor force participation rate is a key component in long-term economic growth, almost as important as productivity.


title: Unemployment

text: A historic shift began around the end of the Great Recession as women began leaving the labor force in the United States and other developed countries. The female labor force participation rate in the United States has steadily decreased since 2009, and as of April 2015, the female labor force participation rate has gone back down to 1988 levels of 56.6%.


title: Unemployment

text: The labor force participation rate explains how an increase in the unemployment rate can occur simultaneously with an increase in employment. If a large number of new workers enter the labor force but only a small fraction become employed, then the increase in the number of unemployed workers can outpace the growth in employment.


title: Unemployment

text: The unemployment-to-population ratio calculates the share of unemployed for the whole population. This is in contrast to the unemployment rate, which calculates the percentage of unemployed persons in relation to the "active" population. Particularly, many young people between 15 and 24 are studying full-time and so are neither working nor looking for a job. That means that they are not part of the labor force, which is used as the denominator when the unemployment rate is calculated.


title: Unemployment

text: The youth unemployment ratios in the European Union range from 5.2 (Austria) to 20.6 percent (Spain). They are considerably lower than the standard youth unemployment rates, ranging from 7.9 (Germany) to 57.9 percent (Greece).


title: Unemployment

text: High and the persistent unemployment, in which economic inequality increases, has a negative effect on subsequent long-run economic growth. Unemployment can harm growth because it is a waste of resources; generates redistributive pressures and subsequent distortions; drives people to poverty; constrains liquidity limiting labor mobility; and erodes self-esteem promoting social dislocation, unrest, and conflict. The 2013 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Robert J. Shiller, said that rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere is the most important problem.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployed individuals are unable to earn money to meet financial obligations. Failure to pay mortgage payments or to pay rent may lead to homelessness through foreclosure or eviction. Across the United States the growing ranks of people made homeless in the foreclosure crisis are generating tent cities.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment increases susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, somatization, anxiety disorders, depression, and suicide. In addition, unemployed people have higher rates of medication use, poor diet, physician visits, tobacco smoking, alcoholic beverage consumption, drug use, and lower rates of exercise. According to a study published in Social Indicator Research, even those who tend to be optimistic find it difficult to look on the bright side of things when unemployed. Using interviews and data from German participants aged 16 to 94, including individuals coping with the stresses of real life and not just a volunteering student population, the researchers determined that even optimists struggled with being unemployed.


title: Unemployment

text: In 1979, M. Harvey Brenner found that for every 10% increase in the number of unemployed, there is an increase of 1.2% in total mortality, a 1.7% increase in cardiovascular disease, 1.3% more cirrhosis cases, 1.7% more suicides, 4.0% more arrests, and 0.8% more assaults reported to the police.


title: Unemployment

text: A study by Christopher Ruhm in 2000 on the effect of recessions on health found that several measures of health actually improve during recessions. As for the impact of an economic downturn on crime, during the Great Depression, the crime rate did not decrease. The unemployed in the US often use welfare programs such as food stamps or accumulating debt because unemployment insurance in the US generally does not replace most of the income that was received on the job, and one cannot receive such aid indefinitely.


title: Unemployment

text: Not everyone suffers equally from unemployment. In a prospective study of 9,570 individuals over four years, highly-conscientious people suffered more than twice as much if they became unemployed. The authors suggested that may because of conscientious people making different attributions about why they became unemployed or through experiencing stronger reactions following failure. There is also the possibility of reverse causality from poor health to unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Some researchers hold that many of the low-income jobs are not really a better option than unemployment with a welfare state, with its unemployment insurance benefits. However, since it is difficult or impossible to get unemployment insurance benefits without having worked in the past, those jobs and unemployment are more complementary than they are substitutes. (They are often held short-term, either by students or by those trying to gain experience; turnover in most low-paying jobs is high.)


title: Unemployment

text: Another cost for the unemployed is that the combination of unemployment, lack of financial resources, and social responsibilities may push unemployed workers to take jobs that do not fit their skills or allow them to use their talents. Unemployment can cause underemployment, and fear of job loss can spur psychological anxiety. As well as anxiety, it can cause depression, lack of confidence, and huge amounts of stress, which is increased when the unemployed are faced with health issues, poverty, and lack of relational support.


title: Unemployment

text: Another personal cost of unemployment is its impact on relationships. A 2008 study from Covizzi, which examined the relationship between unemployment and divorce, found that the rate of divorce is greater for couples when one partner is unemployed. However, a more recent study has found that some couples often stick together in "unhappy" or "unhealthy" marriages when they are unemployed to buffer financial costs. A 2014 study by Van der Meer found that the stigma that comes from being unemployed affects personal well-being, especially for men, who often feel as though their masculine identities are threatened by unemployment.


title: Unemployment

text: Unemployment can also bring personal costs in relation to gender. One study found that women are more likely to experience unemployment than men and that they are less likely to move from temporary positions to permanent positions. Another study on gender and unemployment found that men, however, are more likely to experience greater stress, depression, and adverse effects from unemployment, largely stemming from the perceived threat to their role as breadwinner. The study found that men expect themselves to be viewed as "less manly" after a job loss than they actually are and so they engage in compensating behaviors, such as financial risk-taking and increased assertiveness. Unemployment has been linked to extremely adverse effects on men's mental health. Professor Ian Hickie of the University of Sydney said that evidence showed that men have more restricted social networks than women and that men have are heavily work-based. Therefore, the loss of a job for men means the loss of a whole set of social connections as well. That loss can then lead to men becoming socially isolated very quickly. An Australian study on the mental health impacts of graduating during an economic downturn found that the negative mental health outcomes are greater and more scarring for men than women. The effect was particularly pronounced for those with vocational or secondary education.


title: Unemployment

text: Costs of unemployment also vary depending on age. The young and the old are the two largest age groups currently experiencing unemployment. A 2007 study from Jacob and Kleinert found that young people (ages 18 to 24) who have fewer resources and limited work experiences are more likely to be unemployed. Other researchers have found that today's high school seniors place a lower value on work than those in the past, which is likely because they recognize the limited availability of jobs. At the other end of the age spectrum, studies have found that older individuals have more barriers than younger workers to employment, require stronger social networks to acquire work, and are also less likely to move from temporary to permanent positions. Additionally, some older people see age discrimination as the reason for them not getting hired.


title: Unemployment

text: An economy with high unemployment is not using all of the resources, specifically labour, available to it. Since it is operating below its production possibility frontier, it could have higher output if all of the workforce were usefully employed. However, there is a tradeoff between economic efficiency and unemployment: if all frictionally unemployed accepted the first job that they were offered, they would be likely to be operating at below their skill level, reducing the economy's efficiency.


title: Unemployment

text: During a long period of unemployment, workers can lose their skills, causing a loss of human capital. Being unemployed can also reduce the life expectancy of workers by about seven years.


title: Unemployment

text: High unemployment can encourage xenophobia and protectionism since workers fear that foreigners are stealing their jobs. Efforts to preserve existing jobs of domestic and native workers include legal barriers against "outsiders" who want jobs, obstacles to immigration, and/or tariffs and similar trade barriers against foreign competitors.


title: Unemployment

text: High unemployment can also cause social problems such as crime. If people have less disposable income than before, it is very likely that crime levels within the economy will increase.


title: Unemployment

text: A 2015 study published in "The Lancet", estimates that unemployment causes 45,000 suicides a year globally.


title: Unemployment

text: High levels of unemployment can be causes of civil unrest, in some cases leading to revolution, particularly totalitarianism. The fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933 and Adolf Hitler's rise to power, which culminated in World War II and the deaths of tens of millions and the destruction of much of the physical capital of Europe, is attributed to the poor economic conditions in Germany at the time, notably a high unemployment rate of above 20%; see Great Depression in Central Europe for details.