Attitudes towards the unemployed. An analysis of Swedish survey data

To be unemployed is often associated with being stigmatised by others. People may blame the unemployed themselves, insist that they could find a job if they tried harder, maintain that too little is demanded from recipients of unemployment benefits and consider differences in standard of living between the unemployed and the employed too small. This article is aimed at studying the prevalence of such negative attitudes and to examine the determinants behind them. In May 2000, questions were added on to a randomly selected subsample in the regular Swedish labour force survey. The results indicate that own unemployment experience and perceived risks of becoming unemployed make people less apt to blame the unemployed. Having family members or close friends with unemployment experience tends to have a similar impact. In contrast, young people more often express stigmatising attitudes. With respect to social class position the results are divided.     

Unemployment and psychological distress among young adults in the Nordic countries: A review of the literature

This article reviews Nordic research, published from 1995 and onwards, on the relationship between unemployment and mental health among young adults. Cross‐sectional, longitudinal and time‐series studies are included. Cross‐sectional studies show that the unemployed experience more mental health problems than the non‐unemployed. Leaving unemployment is associated with increased well‐being. Economic problems, feelings of shame and poor social support increase the likelihood of psychological distress. The longitudinal studies show that unemployment increases the risk of psychological distress and attempted suicide, after initial mental health status and confounding factors are accounted for. The relationship remains significant when time‐invariant characteristics of the individuals are controlled for. The time‐series studies found no relationship between unemployment and suicide, but levels of psychological distress were found to vary with changes in the labour market. This relationship remained significant after excluding the non‐employed, indicating that unemployment trends have effects beyond those directly associated with unemployment.     

Socio-Economic Status and Changing Work Attitudes in High School Students

Two samples of South Australian high school students were surveyed, one in 1980 and one in 1986. The 1986 students displayed greater optimism about their prospects of obtaining satisfactory employment despite the fact that official statistics show that the rate of youth unemployment did not decline between 1980 and 1986. The increased optimism, along with a greater willingness to stay longer at secondary school, to undertake tertiary study and to upgrade qualifications was apparent mainly in the students of low socio-economic status and represented a shift in their work attitudes towards those displayed by the students of higher socio-economic status. It is suggested that the students of low socio-economic status had become aware of the importance of qualifications in securing satisfactory employment and their increased optimism was realistically based on a determination to acquire those qualifications.     

Unemployment and Health in Sweden: Public Issues and Private Troubles

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.     

Unemployment, shame and ill health — an exploratory study

Unemployed young people in six Swedish municipalities were studied in respect of the degree of shaming elements experienced by them in their social environment and in respect of mental ill health. The nature of the investigation was exploratory. The study shows that experience of shaming elements in the environment owing to unemployment is relatively frequent. A larger proportion of the long-term unemployed and men account for more shaming elements than do the short-term unemployed and women. It seems as if the factor of shaming elements in the environment is important in order to understand the adverse health-related consequences of unemployment. A greater proportion of those who live in a more shaming environment show mental disorders, deteriorated health, changes in living habits, activities and social relations, than do those living in a less shaming environment. This report discusses possible explanations of the results in the light of existing moral concepts of work and unemployment, as well as of shaming attitudes towards the unemployed.     

Psychological Weil-Being Among Unemployed and Employed People After a Company Closedown: A Longitudinal Study

In a three-year longitudinal study, we examined the effects of unemployment and the fear of becoming unemployed on the psychological well-being of 1153 employees at a shipyard that was closed down, and a control group of 441 employees from another, operative shipyard. On all three questionnaires, unemployed people were significantly lower in psychological well-being than employed people. Change to or from employment was significantly associated with changes in psychological well-being, whereas remaining employed or unemployed did not lead to any systematic changes in psychological well-being. Among employed people, the fear of unemployment was strongly associated with reduced psychological well-being. Thus, the health-related consequences of unemployment affect not only the unemployed but also employed people who have little job security. Consequently, we stress the need to create new workplaces and to implement reforms that can reduce job insecurity in the labor market.     

Predictors of Children's Rights Attitudes and Psychological Well‐being Among Rural and Urban Mainland Chinese Adolescents

This study examined rural and urban Chinese adolescents’ (13–19 years, N = 395) attitudes toward children's self‐determination and nurturance rights, and how these attitudes relate to various dimensions of socialization in their family and school environments, including perceptions of parental and teacher autonomy support and responsiveness and family and school democratic climate. Relations between these variables and psychological well‐being also were examined. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that maternal responsiveness and teacher autonomy support predicted higher levels of endorsement of nurturance rights. Maternal autonomy support and tolerance of dissent at home predicted greater endorsement of self‐determination rights. Democratic climate in the home predicted higher life‐satisfaction and fewer depressive symptoms, even when parent and teacher autonomy support and responsiveness were controlled. Our findings suggest that environments that are structured more democratically and that are more responsive to children's autonomy needs are associated with higher levels of endorsement of children's rights and contribute to adolescents’ psychological health and well‐being in a non‐Western culture.     

Personal and Aggregate Unemployment and Psychological Symptoms

Four different types of individual-level unemployment experiences were studied in relation to psychological symptoms: (1) current unemployment following a recent involuntary job loss, (2) unemployment among students or homemakers, (3) reemployment after recent job loss, and (4) either voluntary or long-term (greater than 6 months) unemployment. Aggregate unemployment (the prevailing rate in the surveyed community) was also studied, both alone and in interaction with each of the four individual-level unemployment conditions. These five variables were each related positively to psychological symptoms, whether measured as a continuous variable or as a dichotomous variable simulating a case/non- case split, and controlling for the usual demographic variables and various other stressful life events. Little evidence was found for interactions of the unemployment conditions with aggregate unemployment or with potential moderators. A small panel study provided a partial longitudinal check for several of these cross-sectional findings. The findings are discussed in terms of public policy options.     

The Limits of Demographic Categories and the Politics of the 2004 Presidential Election

This study looked at responses to the Iraq War in a nationwide sample of college students. The study focused mainly on the role of sex, religiosity, and the location of the school in a "red" or "blue" state. It also looked at a number of other psychological variables, including some related to cognitive competence. Support for the war was measured by an instrument comprising two independent factors—"patriotic militancy" and "internationalism." As expected, support for the war in Iraq was significantly higher among students who considered themselves religiously involved than among students who rated themselves as more secular. Predicted sex differences in attitudes about the war were not found. However, several measures of cognitive competence including grade point average were significantly associated with less favorable attitudes toward the war. As expected from the election results later that year, students from "red" states were more supportive of the war than students from "blue" states. However, these effects appear to be due to a confound between religious affiliation and religiosity. The results are explained in terms of political rhetoric that focused on religious values as well as on the reduced importance of feminism as an ideological stance. They are discussed in terms of the need for a more social psychological analysis of political attitudes and behaviors that takes into account contextual factors and the transformation of demographic categories into meaningful psychological variables.     

An Investigation of Adolescents' Attitudes to Aspects of Their School Life

The attitudes of 4,585 pupils in 27 New South Wales secondary schools to four aspects of school life (school in general, choice of subjects, discipline, and uniforms) were examined in relation to sex, form, and type of school. Marked sex differences in attitudes were obtained, with the girls generally showing more favourable attitudes to school than the boys. Differences in attitudes between forms were found which suggested that pupils tend to reject school values with increased age. Differences between types of schools classified on the basis of geographical location and whether single sex or coeducational did not show clear cut trends. Possible reasons for the findings are discussed as well as the educational implications of the direction and level of pupil opinion about the topics investigated.     

The welfare state as a context for children's development: a study of the effects of unemployment and unemployment protection on reading literacy scores

Data were analysed from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to examine whether the relationship between parental unemployment status and child reading literacy is modified by the level of unemployment protection provided by the nation. The sample consisted of 61,946 children, nested in 3,918 schools among 17 market economies. The results of multi-level analyses indicated that, after controlling for a range of individual, family and school covariates, children with unemployed fathers in all countries had significantly lower reading literacy scores than those of employed fathers (β = −8.84, SE = 2.01). The contextual effect of unemployment protection was not significant after accounting for fathers' employment status (β = −18.63, SE = 16.26). However, there was a significant negative interaction between unemployment protection and fathers' unemployment, yielding the unexpected suggestion that, in countries with higher levels of unemployment protection, children with unemployed fathers fare worse, both in relation to children with unemployed fathers in lower protection countries, and in comparison with children with employed fathers (β = −26.96, SE = 8.08). Possible explanations are advanced for this result, including the potential for a 'discouraged child effect' arising from the potential association between unemployment protection and higher local unemployment rates (though unemployment rates at the national level were not significant).     

College students’ attitudes toward abortion and commitment to the issue

Male and female participants were surveyed on abortion attitudes, commitment, and abortion experience. Results revealed a normal distribution of abortion attitudes rejecting the notion that the vast majority of the sample would have significantly pro-choice views. No significant difference was found in overall abortion attitudes of males vs. females, however, individuals with direct abortion experience were found to have significantly stronger pro-choice attitudes than individuals without direct abortion experience. Overall, college students reported a moderate degree of commitment to the issue of abortion. Females were significantly more committed than males, individuals with direct abortion experience were significantly more committed than individuals without direct abortion experience, and individuals with more extreme abortion attitudes were significantly more committed than those with weaker, more ambivalent, attitudes. No significant difference was found in level of commitment between pro-choice and pro-life individuals.     

Personal values and support of welfare policy among undergraduate students in Israel

Sociological and socio‐psychological theories maintain that values play an essential role in predicting attitudes. Most research portraying the effect of a single value on various attitudes claims that the effect of values on attitudes increases if the attitudes and the specific values are related or if the attitudes involve objects or situations that reflect specific values. This exploratory study examined the relationship between personal values, considered as components of an individual's mindset or psychological structure, and attitudes supporting social welfare policy. The participants in the study were Israeli Bachelor of Arts students from four institutions of higher learning. The students' personal values were measured, and the effect of their values (beyond the students' socio‐demographic characteristics such as gender, religiosity etc.) on social support for welfare policy was tested.     

Does Low Willingness to Respond Introduce a Bias? Results from a Socio-epidemiological study among Young Men and Women

The aim of this study was to investigate if willingness to respond can introduce bias in a population survey and to study the socio-economic characteristics of those with high and low willingness to respond. Two groups of final-year pupils at compulsory school were surveyed five years after leaving school, at the age of 21. The data were collected during class meetings, by mailed questionnaires, telephone and personal interviews. The response rates in the studies were proportionally high – about 98% and 90% respectively. In both surveys there were more men compared to women who were late respondents or non-respondents. Long-term unemployment and lack of upper secondary school for both men and women, as well as living with a partner for men, corresponded to low willingness to respond to a survey. A higher alcohol consumption – between 1.5 to 6.5 times – was observed among those with lower willingness to respond. Even a low rate of non-response can introduce a serious bias and produce uncertain results in, for example, studies on the consequences of youth unemployment on alcohol consumption.     

Unemployment as Illness: An Exploration of Accounts Voiced by the Unemployed in Aotearoa/New Zealand

In Aotearoa/New Zealand unemployment is a continuing social concern that has been linked to a range of negative consequences, including various psychological and physical ailments. Whereas findings linking unemployment to such conse-quences are highly prevalent, few studies have explored people's experiences of unemployment. This article presents an analysis of 26 semistructured individual interviews with unemployed people in order to explore the social construction of unemployment. It is argued that the meaning of unemployment is in many respects analogous to what previous research on lay health beliefs has found regarding the meaning of illness. Prominent themes from literature on the meaning of illness are used to inform an analysis of the meaning of unemployment. The implications of constructing unemployment as an illness are explored in relation to the assignment of cause and responsibility and to the ways the unemployed are socially positioned. Tactics used by participants to preserve a sense of moral worth in response to the stigma of unemployment provide a key focal point for this article.     

区域差异背景下的城市居民对外来人口迁入的态度研究——基于2005年全国综合社会调查数据

本文为外来人口城市融入研究提供了一个来自于城市居民的观察视角。基于2005年全国综合社会调查数据,作者构建了区域差异背景下的城市居民是否愿意外来人口迁入的多层线性模型。结果发现,市民个体的社会经济特征和城市的制度环境对其态度有显著影响。这一结果暗示在户籍制度的作用下,城市居民同外来人口之间的利益分隔和心理区隔可能互相转化,并有可能对后续的户籍改革造成阻碍,这提示我们为了获取大多数人对户籍改革的共识,城市居民的态度不应该被忽视。     

The Psychological Impact of Work Re-entry Training for Female Unemployed Sole Parents

This study examined the psychological effects of short ‘re-entry to the workforce’ courses on the population of female sole parents, neglected in previous unemployment research. The data for the study were obtained from 118 female sole parents participating in the course, who were compared with a waiting list control group at the beginning and end of the course, and at a follow-up four weeks after the course had ended. Results indicated that the course produced decreases in depressive affect, negative mood and minor psychiatric symptomology. On all psychological measures, increases in well-being were shown to be maintained several weeks after the course had ended. It was concluded that the course offered significant and enduring psychological benefits to participants.     

Social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed in the Nordic countries

Kallio J, Blomberg H, Kroll C. Social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed in the Nordic countries In recent decades, municipal social workers have become the implementers of new types of social policy measures aimed at activating the unemployed. These policies put a greater emphasis on the individual's own responsibility for being unemployed. Little is known, however, about how social workers view the unemployed – one factor that might influence how policies are in fact implemented. Therefore, our purpose was to analyse Nordic social workers' attitudes towards the unemployed and their determinants: Do social workers' attitudes correspond with a more individualistic view on unemployment? We utilised the data from surveys of professional social workers in four Nordic countries. Our analyses showed that individualistic attitudes towards the unemployed appeared to be rather rare among Nordic social workers. However, attitudinal differences were found between and within countries.     

The reduction of problem behaviours and school exclusion in at-risk youth: an experimental study of school social work with cost–benefit analyses

A three-year experimental programme of school social work involving 2.5 workers was introduced into a primary school and a linked secondary school serving deprived council estates with high rates of unemployment, poverty and crime and high rates of exclusions from school. In comparison with two similar schools which acted as controls, the experiment was reflected in a stat-istically significant reduction in rates of self-reported theft, truancy, bullying, hard-drug use and net exclusions. Analysis of reduction in school exclusions showed that the experiment was highly cost-effective. Qualitative evaluations supported findings from stat-istical comparisons, suggesting that school social work can be effective in both preventing children coming into care and im-proving school climate and teacher morale.