%0 Journal Article
%T Unemployment in Greece: Econometric Evidence after the Athens 2004 Olympics and before the Global Financial Crisis of 2007¨C2009
%A Stavros Rodokanakis
%J ISRN Economics
%D 2012
%R 10.5402/2012/619602
%X This paper investigates the probability of employment in Greece and focuses on 2006, namely, well after the Athens 2004 Olympics and its fiscal stimulus and before the eruption of the global financial crisis of 2007¨C2009 that transformed into an economic and sovereign debt crisis with unprecedented consequences in the country's postwar economic history. Based on microdata from the Labour Force Survey, the analysis depicts the impact of gender, age, marital status, area of residence, level of education, and immigrant status on finding a job, in Greece as a whole and the two most populated Greek regions, Attica and Central Macedonia. The findings of the logit model show differences in the three areas under examination mainly among the educational variables and area of residence. 1. Introduction The aim of the paper is to study the impact that various social and demographic characteristics had on the labour market in the Greek regions of Attica and Central Macedonia, and the entire country, in 2006¡ªthe year before the global financial crisis of 2007¨C2009. The year 2006 is well after the Athens 2004 Olympic Games and its fiscal stimulus, and before the eruption of the financial crisis that developed into an unprecedented economic and sovereign debt crisis for Greece. We will see the prospects of employment in the Greek labour market even during the period of rapid economic growth and in any case before the recent debt and economic crisis of Greece. We choose Attica and Central Macedonia because the above regions are the largest in Greece in terms of population, and the two biggest urban agglomerations in the country (Athens and Thessaloniki) are situated in the regions under study, and compare them with the whole of Greece. The main questions to be answered are first, what are the social and demographic characteristics that increase the chances of someone in the examined population to find a job, and, second, whether university graduates face greater difficulties in finding a job than nonuniversity degree holders; this issue is of great importance, since earlier studies (see [1¨C5]) have shown this peculiarity in the Greek labour market. We test the human capital theory; namely, we try to research whether the more educated a person is, the higher the probability of him finding a job is. Previous labour market studies for Greece were based on qualitative research and Labour Force Survey (LFS) aggregated data. Our analysis of investigating the unemployment risk in the Greek labour market¡ªat national and Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 2
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.economics/2012/619602/