Abstract
With the global economic crisis and industrial restructuring, the unemployed are suffering from job loss-related stress and loss of income, which is believed to impair their mental and physical health, while coping and self-efficacy could combat the adverse effects of unemployment on health. Thus, this study aims to describe quality of life (QOL) among unemployed Chinese people and explore the associated factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted by convenience sampling, composed of 1825 unemployed people, from January 2011 to September 2011. Questionnaires pertaining to demographic characteristics, the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), the abbreviated version of the Cope Inventory (Brief COPE) and self-efficacy scales were used to collect information from unemployed people in the eastern, central, and western regions of China. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to explore the related factors of QOL. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the relations among coping, self-efficacy, and QOL. Mental QOL was significantly lower than physical QOL in Chinese unemployed people. Coping had significant effects on both physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS), while self-efficacy played the mediating role in the association between Coping and QOL. Unemployed Chinese people’s mental QOL was disrupted more seriously than their physical QOL. An increase in coping could improve QOL by promoting better management of issues brought about by unemployment. In addition, self-efficacy has the ability to reduce the impact of unemployment on QOL, through the mediating path of coping on QOL. This study highlights the need of coping skills training and self-efficacy enhancement for better management of unemployment in order to improve QOL and well-being.
Highlights
With the global economic crisis and industrial restructuring, unemployment problem has become an important social issue in China
The results from this study indicated that most unemployed Chinese individuals suffered from impaired quality of life (QOL), which were lower than the levels of the employed Chinese population [41,42,43,44,45,46] and working-age Chinese population in Sichuan urban areas [41]
Working-age Chinese population in Sichuan urban areas [41]. These findings indicated that unemployed Chinese were significantly influenced by job loss, which resulted in experiencing low levels of both physical and mental health
Summary
With the global economic crisis and industrial restructuring, unemployment problem has become an important social issue in China. Resources and Social Security reported that the urban registered unemployment rate was 4.1% in. The ratio between the registered unemployed and the employed was 1:13.8. When the hidden number of the unemployed people was taken into account, the ratio between the unemployed and the employed would be 1:10.1 [1]. Unemployment is a significant stressor, which threatens individuals’ social welfare and professional life. Most researchers have found that unemployment primarily results in increased stress levels [2,3].
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