Elsevier

Social Science & Medicine

Volume 75, Issue 10, November 2012, Pages 1891-1894
Social Science & Medicine

Short report
Inequality and the association between involuntary job loss and depressive symptoms

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.07.024Get rights and content

Abstract

Although socioeconomic status (SES) has been to shown to be associated with susceptibility to involuntary job loss as well as with health, the ways in which individual SES indicators may moderate the job loss-health association remain underexplored. Using data from the Americans' Changing Lives study, we estimate the ways in which the association between job loss and depressive symptoms depends on five aspects of SES: education, income, occupational prestige, wealth, and homeownership. Our findings indicate that higher SES prior to job loss is not uniformly associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Higher education and lower prestige appear to buffer the health impacts of job loss, while financial indicators do not. These results have a number of implications for understanding the multidimensional role that social inequality plays in shaping the health effects of job loss.

Highlights

► Little research has examined the ways pre-existing inequalities shape the health effects of involuntary job loss. ► Higher SES prior to job loss is not uniformly associated with fewer depressive symptoms. ► Status aspects of SES are moderators: Higher educational attainment and lower occupational prestige buffer the mental health effects of job loss. ► In contrast, class aspects of SES do not appear to moderate the relationship: income and wealth do not have a significant effect.

Introduction

Involuntary job loss is an important and widespread feature of economic downturns. Losing one's job is not only a financial burden, but it has enduring health consequences as well. People who lose their jobs have higher depressive symptoms and greater risk of chronic conditions than those with steady work (e.g., Catalano & Dooley, 1983; Gallo, Bradley, Siegel, & Kasl, 2000). We examine whether people can draw on their other social statuses to buffer against the health consequences of involuntary job loss. Most of the existing literature describes the overall social patterning of job loss itself, finding that individuals of lower social standing are more likely to experience involuntary job displacement than their more advantaged peers (Burgard, Brand, & House, 2007; Kasl & Jones, 2000). While some literature finds heterogeneity by socioeconomic status (SES) in the relationship between unemployment and depression (e.g. Artazcoz, Benach, Borrell, & Cortes, 2004), little research examines job loss itself. We assess whether depressive symptoms following involuntary displacement differ according to several measures of SES. That is, we ask whether individuals can draw on statuses from domains such as education, income, occupational prestige or homeownership to ease the health consequences of involuntary job loss.

Work related to the association between involuntary job loss and mental health outcomes is situated in a wider literature that examines the connection between stress (and stressful events) and depression. Overall, these studies offer evidence for a strong, positive association between stress and depression; persons who experience stress, on average, present higher depressive symptoms. (See Hammen, 2005 and Kessler, 1997 for an overview.)

This literature also posits differential vulnerabilities to stress. For example, “social stratification” (House & Mortimer, 1990) and “social status” (Aneshensel, 1992; Kessler & Cleary, 1980) may pattern individuals' responses to stressors. Others also find that SES and stress are inversely related (Lynch, Kaplan, & Salonen, 1997; McLeod & Kessler, 1990) for largely unknown reasons, although one hypothesis is the co-presence of numerous stressors throughout the life course (Lynch & Kaplan, 2000). Young and Schieman (2012), for example, find evidence for a stress amplification process.

Specifically, job loss may initiate interpersonal and familial conflict (Broman, Hamilton, & Hoffman, 2001; Pearlin, Schieman, Fazio, & Meersman, 2005), provoke a perceived loss of control (Price, Choi, & Vinokur, 2002), and necessitate drawing on financial savings (Pearlin, Menaghan, Lieberman, & Mullan, 1981). The first two consequences fall into the domain of “self-concept” (Turner, 1995); displaced workers' socially approved roles are eliminated and their social worth is depreciated (Schlozman & Verba, 1979). Differences in social standing, however, may shape this impact. Persons may draw on accumulated social resources (e.g., social ties, social standing, and sense of self-worth) to protect themselves or, alternatively, may lose more of that capital through a demoted status. Similarly, they may draw on financial resources to cushion economic effects.

Beyond the conceptual support for this project, there is also some, albeit incomplete, empirical evidence that indicates that inequality may affect the job loss-health association. Burgard et al. (2007) find that education and occupational standing are significantly associated with post-job loss depressive symptoms, while income is not. This finding suggests that different components of SES may have different effects on the health consequences of job loss, but the authors do not explore whether the job loss-health association depends on them.

Turner (1995) examines this interaction more directly. He investigates how the relationship between post-displacement employment status and depression depends on education, finding a positive effect only for those still unemployed at follow-up. He argues that unemployment's financial strain affects persons with lower education, while a perceived loss in standing and control affects persons with higher education. Despite its numerous strengths, Turner's account only includes one measure of SES and examines the moderating effect on re-employment status, not job loss itself. Additionally, while he believes that counterbalancing forces may affect the estimates of differential vulnerability, as SES may operate in both directions due to both psychological and material consequences of job loss, he is unable to test this directly.

Together, these accounts suggest that individuals' social standing may affect the emotional and physiological effects of job loss via differential vulnerability to acute stressors. Social standing, however, is a multidimensional construct; each of the four common indicators of SES reflects a different aspect of overall social position (Braveman et al., 2005; Liberatos, Link, & Kelsey, 1988). Some components of individuals' profiles may operate in one direction (e.g., act as buffers and resources), while others may act in an opposite direction or not at all.

Section snippets

Methods

Our data are taken from the Americans' Changing Lives (ACL) study (House, 2008). The ACL is a longitudinal cohort composed of a multistage stratified area probability sample of 3617 adults aged 25 and older. Four waves of data have been collected: 1986, 1989, 1994, and 2001/2002. Additional information about the design and implementation of the ACL is described elsewhere (House, Lantz, & Herd, 2005). Although weights are available, we do not use them, as our sample differs from the original ACL

Results

Table 2 presents results from both models. Model 1 examines the overall relationship between depression, job loss, and SES status. Job loss was positively associated with follow-up depressive symptoms. Of the SES indicators, only educational attainment and income were significantly associated with a lower depression score, indicating fewer depressive symptoms for those who were more advantaged with respect to these characteristics.

In Model 2, we allow the association of job loss and depression

Discussion

We build upon the job loss and health inequality literatures and explore another way in which SES affects the health impact of job loss. Our results suggest that people's status profiles can moderate the psychological health consequences of involuntary job loss, although only in certain respects and in varying directions. On average, persons with higher levels of education experienced fewer depressive systems, whereas those with higher occupation prestige faced greater symptoms. Other measured

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Taylor Holubar, Brenna Hassinger, and Maureen Canavan for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.

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