The long-lasting impact of unemployment on life satisfaction: results of a longitudinal study over 20 years in East Germany.

Our results support the notion that the adverse effects of unemployment on life satisfaction increase with the time spent unemployed. In 2016, only 2% of the cohort were currently unemployed, but differences between people with and without unemployment experience still exist. This indicates that the negative effect of the unemployment experience will last for a very long time. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrates the effect so persistently at so many measurement points for over 20 years.