David Dooley

Age Differences in Workers’ Efforts to Cope with Economic Distress

The idea that people of different ages may cope with stressful life events quite differently is a recurring theme in the literature on stress and adaptation. Yet neither current theories nor existing empirical evidence offer a consistent picture of such life-course variations. Some theorists, for example, argue that coping efforts in old age are marked by regression to immature, ineffective defense mechanisms (Guttman, 1964, 1974; Pfeiffer, 1977). Others argue that, as a result of lifelong experience in adapting to stressful situations, older adults exhibit equanimity and maturity in their efforts to cope with stressful events (e.g., Denney, 1982; Vaillant, 1977). Moreover, as these two examples illustrate, work on life-course variations in coping is motivated by prescriptive as well as descriptive concerns. That is, investigators have attempted not only to document and describe age differences in coping styles but also to evaluate the maturity or adequacy of various coping styles, sometimes on the basis of clinical judgment or theoretical criteria rather than empirical evidence of effectiveness (e.g., Frydman, 1981; Haan, 1977; Vaillant, 1977).

The Social Costs of Underemployment: Settling Down: Psychological Depression and Underemployment

We have slowly come to realize that periodical idleness as well as the payment of wages insufficient for maintenance of the manual worker in full industrial and domestic efficiency stand economically on the same footing with the ‘sweated’ industries, the overwork of women, and employment of children. But of all the aspects of social misery nothing is so heart-breaking as unemployment, … Jane Addams, 1910, pp. 220–221 INTRODUCTION Background Depression and Stress . According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (1994) (DSM-IV), major depressive disorder is characterized by at least one two-week long episode of depressed mood accompanied by at least four additional symptoms, such as feelings of worthlessness and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Psychological depression is a major public mental health problem affecting approximately 17 million Americans each year (Jacobs, Kopans, & Reizes, 1995). The lifetime prevalence of major depression has been estimated in the range of 10% to 25% for women and 5% to 12% for men with the point prevalence estimated in the range of 5% to 9% for women and 2% to 3% for men (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). This disorder can appear at any age, but the average age at onset is the mid-twenties, near the beginning of the age range of the NLSY respondents in 1992. This is a recurring disorder, with half or more of those individuals with major depressive disorder expected to have a second episode.

The Social Costs of Underemployment: Reverse Causation: Findings on the Selection Hypothesis

… it is doubtful if many of them could or would work full time for long together if they had the opportunity. … there will be found many of them who from shiftlessness, helplessness, idleness, or drink, are inevitably poor. Booth, 1892, pp. 42–43. INTRODUCTION Background A century of research has repeatedly found an association between adverse employment change – usually unemployment – and indicators of ill health, particularly behavioral and emotional disorders. However, the interpretation of this correlation has proved difficult. As noted in Chapter 2, at least three different mechanisms could account for it, each intuitively plausible: social causation, confounding, and selection. Social causation views adverse employment change as the cause of ill health. The remaining chapters of this book will focus on this mechanism, with the others controlled. An ever-present rival explanation to both social causation and selection involves confounding by other variables. When the contributions of such confounding variables are removed, usually by statistical control, the initial association may weaken or disappear. Any prior variable that serves as a risk factor for both employment and health change could function as a confounder. For example, growing up in poverty may increase the risk of intermittent unemployment in adulthood because of educational inadequacies. In addition, it may increase the risk of ill health in adulthood as a result of inadequate health care in childhood or the acquisition of poor health habits.

The Social Costs of Underemployment: Leaving School: Self-esteem in an Unwelcoming Economy

A mans work is the primary base for his life in society. Through it he is ‘plugged into’ an occupational structure and a cultural, class and social matrix. Work is also of great psychological importance; it is a vehicle for the fulfillment or negation of central aspects of self. Levinson, 1978, p. 9. In general, we obtain the same effects upon the personality of unemployed youth as upon that of unemployed adults, but because of the greater susceptibility of youth and because they are going through a transition period between childhood and maturity these effects are probably more lasting. Eisenberg & Lazarsfeld, 1938, p. 383. INTRODUCTION This chapter explores the relationship between employment status and self-esteem in young people. Controlling for their self-esteem when the NLSY respondents were still in secondary school, does later self-esteem vary depending on whether the school-leaver is unemployed, inadequately employed, adequately employed, or out of the labor force? Employment and development Work and Childhood . Child labor laws now encode the consensus that young children risk serious harm from most kinds of labor. This harm may be either physical (e.g., risk of injury) or psychological (e.g., denial of appropriate education). These laws do not allow young children to work except under unusual circumstances (e.g., child actors) and then only with careful monitoring to protect against exploitation and mitigate the risks (e.g., providing tutors on the movie set). Nevertheless, reports still surface from time to time of child labor being practiced under horrific circumstances.