L R Jönsson

Sense of coherence during unemployment

The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between different forms of hardship during unemployment and the sense of coherence (SOC). These hardships were considered in the framework of the finances–shame model, which has been developed to help provide a greater understanding of why unemployment is so painful to some whilst others are hardly affected by it. The hypothesis in this study was that the greater the financial hardships during unemployment and the more a person has been subjected to shaming by others because they are unemployed, the lower his or her SOC will be, and vice versa. The empirical data were collected by means of a cross-sectional survey of 1,249 unemployed people in a region in southern Sweden who at the time of the survey were engaged in some form of labour-market training or workfare programme. The dropout rate was 23%. The results from the study lent strong support to the finances–shame model. Among those who were exposed to a greater degree of financial hardship and also had more shaming experiences, the mean SOC score was 42.14 for women and 42.41 for men. The corresponding figures for those facing a lesser degree of financial hardship and with fewer shaming experiences were 67.10 and 66.66 respectively, i.e. figures which are on a par with or somewhat higher than for population studies covering the whole population.