Previous research has shown that an advantaged social class position
protects individuals from unemployment, but less is known about how this
relationship has developed after the turn of the millennium, how it
varies by gender and to what extent education contributes to the
association between these factors. We assess these questions using
register-based data on the Finnish labour force over a 28-year period
between 1988 and 2015. The overall risk of unemployment was 2.7–3.7-fold
among manual classes compared to upper non-manual classes, and
1.4–1.7-fold among lower compared to upper non-manual classes.
Controlling for education attenuated the differences between social
classes by about two-thirds. Social class disparities were somewhat more
distinct among men than among women, but gender differences narrowed
over time. Overall, temporal changes were small, especially among men,
except for a curvilinear pattern observed for the relative unemployment
risk of the lower non-manual class. To conclude, despite a comparatively
egalitarian context and drastic changes in economic conditions and
labour market structures over time, social stratification in
unemployment has been substantial and considerably persistent. This is
in line with the conceptualization of social class underpinning
differing employment relations and, therefore, inherently creating
variation in labour market risks.