Perceived Unemployment

Abstract

a great deal of social research examines macro-micro linkages-for example, by examining how economic conditions influence people's political attitudes and behavior. rarely, however, do researchers directly examine the mechanisms linking macro-level conditions to individual-level attitudes and behavior, the accuracy of people's perceptions of the larger context, or the consequences of their misperceptions. in this paper, using data from two waves of the Polish Panel study (2003 and 2008), i examine individual and contextual sources of perceived unemployment as well as the consequences of perceived unemployment for economic and political attitudes. results suggest that people do not possess accurate information on levels of local unemployment in Poland; on average, they overestimate the extent of local unemployment (some quite dramatically). Misperceptions of unemployment vary in predictable ways; misperceptions are related to resources, cognitive ability, and a heightened awareness of unemployment (e.g., by living in the same household with someone who is unemployed or in a region with high unemployment). Misperceptions of unemployment, moreover, lead to changes in people's economic and political attitudes. actual rates of unemployment, however, are not directly related to changes in people's attitudes.House argues that "all individual psychology and behavior occurs in and is influenced by macrosocial structures and processes" (1995: 387). Researchers frequently combine aggregate data from contextual units, such as countries and neighborhoods, with survey data to explore these macro-micro linkages. The focus of such research is often on the mechanisms through which contextual conditions influence people's attitudes and behaviors. A great deal of research, for example, examines the effect winter 2012-13 101

Authoritarian Predispositions and Attitudes Towards Redistribution

“…Our analysis shows that people generally tend to overestimate levels of unemployment in their societies (cf. Conover et al, ; Kunovich, ) such that, in our dataset, only 16% of respondents correctly estimate unemployment levels in their own country whereas about 73% overestimate them. However, this incorrect estimation does not necessarily mean that people are ignorant about unemployment.…”

Figuring Figures: Exploring Europeans’ Knowledge of Official Economic Statistics

“…They should highlight how this economic information is used in daily life and how the misunderstanding of economic figures could lead to poor decision-making. The misperception of inflation figures may have an impact on household consumption and decisions on savings (Duffy and Lunn 2009;Carrillo and Emran 2012); the misperception of unemployment rates may alter people's economic and political attitudes (Kunovich 2012) and labor outcomes (Cardoso et al 2016). For instance, people, who overestimate unemployment figures may consider that they have little bargaining power and hence lower their reservation wages, that is, the lowest wage at which they are willing to work, which would thus result in a lower actual wage (Cardoso et al 2016).…”