About the Book

This outstanding new book provides a rare insight into ground-breaking comprehensive research from Europe, Australia, Asia and the United States on the health impact of unemployment on the individual and the community.

Featuring authors from across the fields of psychology, medicine, economics, sociology, occupational health and organisational development, Unemployment and Health outlines current theory and findings about the factors responsible for the generally detrimental health effects of being out of work or in unstable employment. The mechanisms underlying the benefits of secure employment are also discussed, along with interventions that may help to limit the negative health effects of employment status, including the implementation of corporate and government policies, and the empowerment of employees. Finally, the book examines corporate responsibilities in regard to employment and the dismissal process.

This book is a vital resource for policy-makers, social workers, educators, researchers, students and anyone with an interest in the global effects of unemployment on the human condition.

Unemployment and Health is based on presentations by leading researchers at the Second International Expert Conference organised by the Scientific Committee Unemployment and Health of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) on ‘Occupational Transitions: Unemployment, Underemployment and Health’, held in Adelaide, Australia in December 2001. The activities of this body bring together researchers working specifically on occupational health issues related to employment with those focusing on the health effects of being out of work in a society centred on paid employment. Thus the ICOH Scientific Committee tries to bridge these two areas that are traditionally separated and to reduce the gap between unemployment research and occupational health. The Adelaide conference was the second international conference. The first one, held in Paris in 1998, focused on interventions with unemployed people. Additional contributions have been invited from other leading researchers who were unable to attend the conference.

About the Editors

Thomas Kieselbach is professor of Work and Health Psychology and head of the Institute for Psychology of Work, Unemployment, and Health (IPG) at the University of Bremen, Germany. During the last 24 years the IPG has concentrated on research in the areas of unemployment, socialisation to work and health promotion. He worked from 1993–1998 as professor for Health Psychology at the University of Hannover. He has published 25 books and more than 200 articles in eight languages in national and international journals. Since 1990 he has been the editor of the book series Psychology of Social Inequality (VS–Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften at Springer). He serves as a reviewer for various international and national journals and is a member of the editorial board of Ergonomia. He coordinated two EU-funded research consortia on Youth Unemployment and the Risk of Social Exclusion (1998–2000) and Social Convoy and Sustainable Employability: Innovative Outplacement/Replacement Counselling Strategies (2000–2004). He also participated in several European research projects as national partner (e.g., Unemployment and Mental Health, Local Initiatives to Combat Social Exclusion, European Career Management Training Foundation, Monitoring Innovative Enterprise Restructuring in Europe). His main research areas include unemployment and health, evaluation of interventions, community psychology, health psychology, and occupational health. Since 2000 and until 2009 he is chairman of the Scientific Committee Unemployment and Health of the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH). In 2003 he was appointed as member of the Policy Committee of the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and chairman of its Subcommission Psychology of Unemployment.

Tony Winefield, PhD, is Professor and Director of the Centre for Applied Psychological Research at the University of South Australia. He obtained his PhD at University College London, and worked at the University of Adelaide for many years before joining the University of South Australia in 1999 as Foundation Professor of Psychology. From 1980-1989 he directed a 10-year longitudinal investigation of youth unemployment, culminating in more than 50 publications, including the book: Winefield, A.H., Tiggemann, M., Winefield, H.R. & Goldney, R.D. (1993). Growing Up with Unemployment: A Longitudinal Study of its Psychological Impact. In 1993 he was made a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and in 2000 he gave an invited State of the Art address on the psychology of unemployment at the 27th International Congress of Psychology, Stockholm. Tony has published extensively on the psychology of unemployment, organisational stress, and learned helplessness, and in 2003 he received the Elton Mayo Award from the Australian Psychological Society’s College of Organisational Psychologists for “Outstanding contributions to Industrial/ Organisational Psychology Research and Teaching”. He is currently Associate Editor of the International Journal of Stress Management.

Carolyn Boyd is a research assistant at the University of South Australia’s Centre for Applied Psychological Research. She is also completing a doctoral thesis at Flinders University in South Australia. Her research interests include generativity and adult development and work-life balance.

Sarah Anderson is a research assistant at the Centre for Applied Psychological Research at the University of South Australia. She is currently working on a longitudinal study that follows school leavers into the workforce. She is also a PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of South Australia. Her interests include transition into work and the effects of employment status on health, well-being and worker attitudes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword vii
Introduction ix

SECTION 1
Health Effects of Unemployment
Chapter 1
Explanations for Deteriorating Wellbeing in Unemployed People: Specific Unemployment Theories and Beyond
Peter A. Creed and Dee Bartrum
Chapter 2
Insecurity, the Restructuring of Unemployment and Mental Health
David Fryer
Chapter 3
Justice Concerns and Mental Health During Unemployment 
Claudia Dalbert
Chapter 4
Quantitative Reviews in Psychological Unemployment Research: An Overview
Karsten Ingmar Paul and Klaus Moser
Chapter 5
Unemployment, Secure Employment and Insecure Employment: Differences in Self-Reported Ill Health
Bengt Starrin and Staffan Janson
Chapter 6
The Finances–Shame Model and the Relation Between Unemployment and Health
Bengt Starrin and Leif R. Jönsson
Chapter 7
Retrenchment and Health Parameters: A Short Report
Dimity Pond, Elizabeth Harris, Parker Magin, Amber Sutton, Vanessa Traynor, Kate D’Este and Susan Goode
Chapter 8
Suicidal Ideation in the Long-Term Unemployed: A Five-Year Longitudinal Study
Bjørgulf Claussen
Chapter 9
Quality of Life of the Employed and Unemployed in Turkey: A Comparative Field Study
Yucel Demiral, Alp Ergör, Belgin Unal and Semih Semin
Chapter 10
Health and Lifestyle of Reemployed and Unemployed People Following the Japanese Corporate Reorganisation Law
Tatsuya Ishitake and Tsunetaka Matoba
Chapter 11
Do the Health Consequences of Unemployment Differ For Young Men and Women?
Anne Hammarström and Urban Janlert
Chapter 12
Mass Lay-Offs and Tolerance for Mental Illness: Racial Differences in the Economy’s Effect on Coerced Treatment
Eric Kessell and Ralph Catalano
Chapter 13
Demographic, Occupational and Employer-Related Determinants of Long-Term Unemployment Among Danish Employees 
Thomas Lund and Merete Labriola
Chapter 14
Organisational Citizenship Behaviours in Relation to Job Status, Job Insecurity, Organisation Commitment and Identification, Job Satisfaction and Work Values 
N.T. Feather and Katrin A. Rauter

SECTION 2
Interventions to Limit the Health Effects of Unemployment: Activation Policies and Empowerment
Chapter 15
Active Labour Market Programs for Young Long-Term Unemployed: Psychological Impact of Participation in a Recent Program
Anthony H. Winefield and Edgar Carson
Chapter 16
Explaining the Negative Relationship Between Length of Unemployment and the Willingness to Undertake a Job Training: A Self-Determination Perspective
Maarten Vansteenkiste, Hans De Witte and Willy Lens
Chapter 17
The Role of Limited Duration Contracts in Labour Market Transition
Ola Bergström
Chapter 18
Youth Unemployment and the Risk of Social Exclusion in Six European Countries
Thomas Kieselbach
Chapter 19
Can Volunteering Be a Moderator of the Detrimental Effects of Engagement in (Un)Employment?
Jacques C. Metzer
Chapter 20
Restructuring and Outplacement in the Netherlands
Ellen Heuven, Arnold Bakker and Wilmar Schaufeli
Chapter 21
Unemployment and Activation Policy: The Finnish Experience
Simo Mannila

About the Contributors

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