| Abstract: | ![]()
The unemployment rate for a country seems to reflect unemployment policies rather than economic conditions. Variations in employment rates for selected Western countries are presented as a background for a discussion of unemployment and its individual and societal consequences in Sweden. Unemployment is both a private trouble—where individuals see the possibility of controlling their own lives diminishing, which leads to increased risk for psychological and physiological stress—and a public issue, for increased unemployment is associated with societal vulnerability, social polarization, and the breakdown of community ties, which lead to increased societal stress and increased mortality on the national and the community levels. However, for the large majority of workers, the Swedish welfare system buffers first against unemployment, and second against its negative economic effects. Less than 2% of the workforce are exposed to unemployment, and a minority of the unemployed seem negatively affected by the unemployment experience. An empirical longitudinal study of unemployed blue-collar workers and two employed control groups indicated that a coping orientation involving an attitude of mastery or perceived control buffered against psychological and physiological stress reactions. |
