Social class and re‐employment: Changes in health and perceived financial circumstances

Abstract

pattern with those in the lowest levels of organizations having the highest levels of sickness absence, least job satisfaction and the highest reports of stress and psychological strain (Fletcher and Payne, 1980). The evidence that physical and mental health varies by social class amongst the unemployed is much less clear. Rundquist and Sletto (1936) did find that the middle class unemployed had better 'general adjustment' and 'morale'. Cohn (1978) found they had higher satisfaction with self, and Hepworth (1980) found they had fewer symptoms of minor psychiatric morbidity, as well as better levels of satisfaction with life in general. Little (1976) found that almost half of a sample of unemployed technical professionals in America thought that the loss of theirjob, 'might not have been such a bad break after all'. Fineman (1983) studied British managers/professional workers and found many of them did not report severe negative consequences of being unemployed. Kaufman (1982) on the other hand focuses on unemployment amongst technical and professional workers and concludes that, 'the weight of evidence favours the conclusion that the psychological effects of unemployment are likely to be more extreme for professionals than for other workers' (p. 24). Payne, Warr and Hartley (1984) measured the health and well-being of 399 men, half of whom were white collar/ professionals and the other half semi-skilled or unskilled workers. All had been unemployed for between 6 and 11 months and they found no difference on any of these sorts of variables, although the working class did report more financial worries, and troubles with boredom. Catalano and Dooley (1983) found a more complex pattern in that economic recession was found to be associated with a higher incidence of illness and injury for the middle classes, but not higher or lower class respondents; they argued that this resulted from higher rates of undesirable job and financial events amongst the middle class.