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Is There a Silver Lining in Unemployment?

CUHK research reveals how unemployment could lead to contributions of public good

Paid Post:CUHK Business School
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Is There a Silver Lining in Unemployment?

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The COVID-19 epidemic has ravaged labour markets around the world. In April, the US unemployment rate hit 14.7 percent, its highest since the Great Depression. Even mighty China, the global driver of economic growth, saw the official unemployment rate rise to a record 6.2 percent in February, after 5 million jobs were lost in the country in the first two months. Elsewhere, the United Nation’s International Labour Organization forecasts 1.6 billion people globally are in immediate danger of losing their livelihood.

However, every cloud has a silver lining (so the saying goes), and a recent study by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) has outlined proof that rising unemployment may in fact encourage more people to engage in activities that are beneficial to society.

The research study, titled “Unemployment and Digital Public Goods Contribution”, was conducted by Michael Zhang, Associate Dean (Innovation and Impact) and Professor of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics at CUHK Business School, Prof. Michael Kummer at University of East Anglia and Prof. Olga Slivko at Erasmus University.

As a proxy for volunteering activity, the paper focuses on content contribution on Wikipedia, the open-source online encyclopedia, during the European debt crisis, when several countries in the bloc were unable to refinance their government debt. This was followed by a surge in unemployment.

“We found higher unemployment was associated with higher participation by volunteers on Wikipedia and an increased rate of content generation,” says Prof. Zhang. “Wikipedia articles were being read more frequently in areas where unemployment was going up, and this was followed by increasing numbers of edits that were made by anonymous or casual editors. Subsequently, the number of highly active users grew and the content on the platform increased as a result.”

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