Living with unemployment and underemployment: poor, isolated and struggling to change

Abstract

The experience of unemployment or underemployment can cause substantial psychological and social impairment in the lives of those who are unable to find good quality work. People who suffer from mental health problems are over-represented amongst the unemployed when compared to those who are gainfully employed. The overarching goal of this project was to investigate the mechanisms through which unemployment and underemployment may impact mental health. Three factors that have emerged as important predictors of poor mental health in the unemployed are financial hardship, social support and a sense of control/mastery. This thesis presents three studies centred on the links between mental health and employment status, and explores the role of mastery, financial hardship, and social support. The first study used longitudinal data from a community sample from the Canberra/Queanbeyan region. Two thousand, three hundred and eighty-nine participants initially aged in their early twenties were followed across eight years and three waves. Social support, financial hardship and mastery all emerged as important mediating variables in the relationship between unemployment and depression, compared to the employed. These results suggest that these factors are indeed salient characteristics in the experience of unemployment. By contrast, for the underemployed group, only financial hardship demonstrated a mediating effect on the association between underemployment and depression – suggesting that even inadequate employment may provide a greater source of mastery and social support than no work at all. The second study also used longitudinal data to build upon these findings by using a nationally representative sample from three waves, as well as exploring the impact of duration of unemployment on mental health. The results broadly supported the findings of Study 1 regarding unemployment, though the findings differed regarding underemployment. Financial hardship, mastery and social support all emerged as important explanatory factors for poor mental health differences (compared to the employed) for both under- and unemployment states. In regards to the impact of time spent unemployed on mental health, comparison of respondents with different durations of unemployment suggested that for the first 9 weeks of unemployment there is a strong negative association between mental health and duration of unemployment. However, after these first nine weeks mental health does not continue to decline. This is a particularly salient finding given recent Australian Government policy changes that have proposed a ‘wait-time’ before individuals can claim welfare assistance after losing a job. The final study investigated whether mastery, social support and financial hardship was related to high depressive symptomatology within a sample of unemployed and under-employed individuals (n = 192). Furthermore, it explored how these factors may influence key factors related to reemployment, or indeed continued unemployment: job search intensity, job search expectations and intentions. The results indicated that differences in depression were related to financial hardship, mastery and some measures of social support, as were those in the first seven weeks of unemployment. These correlates of depression were also shown to be associated with job seeker’s job search intensity, expectations and intentions – suggesting that the factors associated with poor mental health also play a role in job search outcomes. The results of these studies have three main implications. First, financial hardship, social support and a sense of mastery help to explain differences seen in the mental health between employment states (unemployed v. employed, underemployed v. employed), as well as being important correlates of depression amongst the unemployed and underemployed. Second, the impact of financial hardship, social support and a sense of mastery on the job search process may hinder or enhance chances of reemployment. Finally, future research needs to more comprehensively consider the duration of unemployment when investigating the impact of unemployment on mental health, as the results suggest that there is not a linear relationship. There are also important implications from these findings for the types of psychological and other support that is most applicable for those who are unemployed. Show more