Unemployment Can Hurt You More Than the Death of a Spouse
How does it really feel to be out of work for a long time? We talk to guys who’ve been there
Here’s a sad fact: Even if you get a new job after you’ve been laid off or let go from a previous job, your life satisfaction will permanently remain at a lower level than it was prior to the job loss.
And here’s an even sadder one: This job loss will leave even more of a permanent mark than divorce or the death of a spouse, says Maike Luhmann, a professor of psychology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum who’s written extensively on the subject.
The reasons are numerous. For one, it can be hard to gain back the confidence you’ve lost. And even after you’ve a new job, there’s the added fear of losing it or having to prove you were worth the hire in the first place. It also places strain on personal relationships, because it’s not just the person who loses their job who’s affected. “Spouses of unemployed persons also experience somewhat weaker, but still significant drops in their life satisfaction,” Luhmann says. And while it would seem like the financial problems are the deal-breaker, it’s actually “the psychological effects such as shared stressors or emotional contagion,” some of which can be linked to traditional gender roles, in which men are…
