Mattias Strandh

Towards a Sociological Understanding of Mental Well-Being among the Unemployed: The Role of Economic and Psychosocial Factors

Classic research on unemployment and mental health has focused on the functions of employment. These functions are considered to be of equal importance for all unemployed. A critique of this perspective has been that it views the unemployed as passive and homogeneous. Instead, an agency approach has been suggested, which focuses on the individual goals of the unemployed. This paper develops and tests a model for understanding the differentiated mental consequences of unemployment, which on a theoretical level integrates both the structural restrictions of the unemployment situation and the agency of the individual. The model is based on previous findings which indicate that mental well-being is dependent on the economic need for employment, on the one hand, and on the psychosocial need for employment, on the other hand. The model integrates both these aspects and the results show that the combined effect is of central importance for the differentiated mental well-being of the unemployed. The analysis is based on a longitudinal survey of 3,500 randomly selected, unemployed Swedes.

Nest Leaving in Sweden: The Importance of Early Educational and Labor Market Careers.

This article investigates the importance of the early educational and labor market career for nest leaving and for returning to the parental home. Using unique individual life course data for the e ...

Unemployment, gender and mental health : the role of the gender regime

Existing research suggests that gender differences in the effect of unemployment on mental health are related to the different positions and roles that are available for men and women in society and the family; roles that are connected with their different psychosocial and economic need for employment. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of gender in the relationship between unemployment and mental wellbeing in Sweden, representing a gender regime with a similar need for employment among women and men, and Ireland, representing a gender regime in which the need for employment differs between women and men. The results, based on longitudinal data from the two countries, show that unemployment was more negatively related to mental health among men than among women in Ireland, while men and women were equally affected by unemployment in Sweden. Factors related to the family and economic situation, as well as gendered selection into the unemployment population, explains the difference in mental health between unemployed men and women in Ireland. The overall conclusion is that the context has a major influence on the relationship between unemployment, gender and mental health.

It´s no surprise! Men are not hit more than women by the health consequences of unemployment in the Northern Swedish Cohort

Aims: Research often fails to ascertain whether men and women are equally hit by the health consequences of unemployment. The aim of this study was to analyze whether men’s self-reported health and health behaviour were hit more by unemployment than women’s in a follow-up of the Northern Swedish Cohort. Methods: A follow-up study of a cohort of all school leavers in a middle-sized industrial town in northern Sweden was performed from age 16 to age 42. Of those still alive of the original cohort, 94% (n = 1,006) participated during the whole period. A sample was made of participants in the labour force and living in Sweden (n = 916). Register data were used to assess the length of unemployment from age 40 to 42, while questionnaire data were used for the other variables. Results: In multivariate logistic regression analyses significant relations between unemployment and mental health/smoking were found among both women and men, even after control for unemployment at the time of the investigation and indicators of health-related selection. Significant relations between unemployment and alcohol consumption were found among women, while few visits to a dentist was significant among men. Conclusions: Men are not hit more by the health consequences of unemployment in a Swedish context, with a high participation rate of women in the labour market. The public health relevance is that the study indicates the need to take gendered contexts into account in public health research.

THE IMPACT OF UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT SYSTEM ON THE MENTAL WELL-BEING OF THE UNEMPLOYED IN SWEDEN, IRELAND AND GREAT BRITAIN

ABSTRACT Although the availability of social support and psychological attachment to work have been shown to influence mental well-being in unemployment, the main determinant suggested in research is economic strain. Yet, though the level of state support in unemployment is the most crucial determinant of economic strain, there has been little research on the impact of welfare benefit regime on mental well-being among the unemployed. In this paper we compare the impact of benefit regime by comparing the unemployed in Britain, Ireland and Sweden. We find that the type of benefit received is an important determinant of mental distress with income replacement benefits being more beneficial than flat rate benefits. Results also show that different systems differentially impact on different groups with income replacement benefits tending to maintain pre-unemployment differences in distress and flat rate benefits equalising these differences.

Job control and demands, work-life balance and wellbeing among selfemployed men and women in Europe

Self-employed persons and their enterprises are regarded as important to the economy for their contribution to economic development. However, an understanding of the relationship between the psychosocial working conditions, the work-life balance and outcomes, such as health and wellbeing among the self-employed and micro-enterprise is limited. The main aim of this article is to study the relationships between control and demands at work, the work-life balance and wellbeing among self-employed men and women. Data were obtained from the European Social Survey (ESS) programme 2004, which is an interview survey conducted in 26 European countries (n =15 789). Wellbeing is measured by the WHO-Five Wellbeing Index and work-life balance is measured by an index consisting of two questions on work-life balance/conflict. The results show that men and women who are self-employed experience a lower level of work-life balance than those employed and this result is found more in men than women. When job control and demands are held constant for the self-employed and the employed, self-employed women experience a significantly higher level of work-life balance than do employed women, but self-employed men experience a similar level of work-life balance as do employed men. Self-employed women have a slightly higher level of wellbeing than do employed women and the difference between the self-employed and the employed men is non-significant. When controlling for the level of job control, the relationship between self-employment and wellbeing is non-significant among women and is significantly negative among men. The results of this study confirm that the psychosocial working conditions are important because demands and control in work influence work-life balance and wellbeing among self-employed men and women.

Active Labour Market Policy and Unemployment Scarring: A Ten-year Swedish Panel Study

Previous studies have shown mixed results concerning the effects of participation in active labour market policy programmes (ALMPs) on the longer term scars in the form of poor income development a ...

Mental health among the unemployed and the unemployment rate in the municipality

BACKGROUND Previous research has shown that unemployment experiences increase the risk of poor mental health and that this effect differs depending on individual characteristics. Relatively little is known, however, about how the unemployment rate and labour market conditions impact the relationship. This study investigates how municipal unemployment rates and vacancy rates affect mental health in a nationally representative longitudinal survey of initially unemployed Swedish respondents. METHODS The study uses a nationally representative longitudinal survey of currently and recently unemployed people in Sweden, in which respondents were re-interviewed one year after the initial interview. Mental health was measured using the GHQ-12. The present article uses multilevel models (hierarchical linear models) to combine municipal-level information on unemployment levels and vacancy rates with individual-level control variables. RESULTS Higher municipal vacancy rates improved mental health among the unemployed. However, no coherent effect of municipal unemployment rate on the relationship between unemployment and mental health was found. CONCLUSIONS The effect of municipal vacancy rates can be understood in terms of the impact of perceived opportunity on the sense of life-course predictability. That there was no effect of municipal unemployment rate indicates that high local unemployment levels do not reduce the sense of shame and perceived stigma among the unemployed. Taken together, our findings would seem to present a rather bleak picture of the current dramatic labour market situation. The unemployed will be negatively affected by the extremely low demand for labour, while they will not be able to take comfort from their growing numbers.

Second chance education matters! Income trajectories of poorly educated non-Nordics in Sweden

In this study we examine the long-term impact of second chance education (SCE) on incomes of poorly educated individuals who live in Sweden but were not born in a Nordic country, using data on income changes from 1992 to 2003 compiled by Statistics Sweden. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses show that participation in SCE increased the work income of non-Nordics by a higher percentage than that of Nordics. The results also indicate that much of the effects of SCE on non-Nordics are related to increases in “Sweden-specific” human capital, rather than increases in their educational level per se, which seems to provide a form of ‘endowment insurance’ that improves their labour market position in Sweden. Relying on the theoretical framework of the Capability Approach, we conclude that such effects are related to the instrumental economic value of individuals’ capability to be educated, as well as the value of material well-being.

Domestic work and psychological distress : what is the importance of relative socioeconomic position and gender inequality in the couple relationship?

Aims The aim of this study was to investigate whether the relation between responsibility for domestic work and psychological distress was influenced by perception of gender inequality in the couple relationship and relative socioeconomic position. Methods In the Northern Swedish Cohort, all pupils who studied in the last year of compulsory school in a northern Swedish town in 1981 have been followed regularly until 2007. In this study, participants living with children were selected (n = 371 women, 352 men). The importance of relative socioeconomic position and perception of gender inequality in the couple relationship in combination with domestic work for psychological distress was examined through logistic regression analysis. Results Two combinations of variables including socioeconomic position (‘having less than half of the responsibility for domestic work and partner higher socioeconomic position’ and ‘having more than half the responsibility for domestic work and equal socioeconomic position’) were related to psychological distress. There were also higher ORs for psychological distress for the combinations of having ‘less than half of the responsibility for domestic work and gender-unequal couple relationship’ and ‘more than half the responsibility for domestic work and gender-unequal couple relationship’. Having a lower socioeconomic position than the partner was associated with higher ORs for psychological distress among men. Conclusions This study showed that domestic work is a highly gendered activity as women tend to have a greater and men a smaller responsibility. Both these directions of inequality in domestic work, in combination with experiencing the couple relationship as gender-unequal, were associated with psychological distress There is a need for more research with a relational approach on inequalities in health in order to capture the power relations within couples in various settings.