Abstract
BackgroundFew studies have examined depression as both a cause and effect of unemployment, but no prior work investigated these relationships in the context of organisational downsizing. We explored whether the exposure to downsizing is associated with subsequent depression (social causation), and whether pre-existing depression increases the risk of being laid off when organisations downsize (health selection).MethodsTwo successive waves of the nationally representative Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health represented the baseline (2008) and follow-up (2010) of this study. Analyses included 196 workers who lost their jobs through downsizing, 1462 layoff survivors remaining in downsized organisations and 1845 employees of non-downsized workplaces. The main outcomes were: (1) Depressive symptoms at follow-up, assessed with a brief subscale from the Symptom Checklist 90, categorised by severity levels (“major depression”, “less severe symptoms” and “no depression”) and analysed in relation to earlier downsizing exposure; (2) Job loss in persons with downsizing in relation to earlier depressive symptoms. The associations were assessed by means of multinomial logistic regression.ResultsJob loss consistently predicted subsequent major depression among men and women, with a somewhat greater effect size in men. Surviving a layoff was significantly associated with subsequent major depression in women but not in men. Women with major depression have increased risks of exclusion from employment when organisations downsize, whereas job loss in men was not significantly influenced by their health.ConclusionsThe evidence from this study suggests that the relative importance of social causation and health selection varies by gender in the context of organisational downsizing. Strategies for handling depression among employees should be sensitive to gender-specific risks during layoffs. Policies preventing social exclusion can be important for female workers at higher risk of depression.
Highlights
Few studies have examined depression as both a cause and effect of unemployment, but no prior work investigated these relationships in the context of organisational downsizing
Using data from two successive waves of the nationally representative Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH), we investigated social causation and health selection with two main research questions: (1) whether the exposure to downsizing during the recent Great Recession is associated with subsequent depression in laid-off and remaining workers and (2) whether pre-existing depression increases the risk of being laid off when organisations downsize
Further results indicate in both genders that past redundancies were most frequent among the victims and survivors of layoffs; a larger scale of downsizing during the Great Recession was more common in displaced workers
Summary
Few studies have examined depression as both a cause and effect of unemployment, but no prior work investigated these relationships in the context of organisational downsizing. We explored whether the exposure to downsizing is associated with subsequent depression (social causation), and whether pre-existing depression increases the risk of being laid off when organisations downsize (health selection). While downsizing can be important for survival or competitiveness of economic organisations, it is often associated with depressive symptoms among laid off [1, 2] and remaining [3,4,5] workers. Evidence from prospective studies suggests that major downsizing has the potential to harm the emotional health of workers through job insecurity [6, 7], job displacement [1, 2], unemployment [8, 9] or surviving substantial layoffs while staying employed in downsized companies [10, 11] (i.e., social causation), these findings are not entirely consistent [12, 13]. Evidence remains limited as to whether such downsizing can (a) cause new or worsening depression in displaced and remaining workers and (b) intensify social exclusion of employees with symptoms of depression through unemployment
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