Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: tired

How Job Loss Frays Communities

This article reveals that involuntary layoffs tend to cause a permanent reduction in people's community involvement.

Lose Your Job, Lose Contact With Your Community
Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune: "Two troubling trends have reshaped the lives of Americans over the past few decades: Our jobs are less secure, and we are less likely to participate in social and community groups. A first-of-its-kind study suggests these phenomena are linked. Analyzing decades of data, sociologist Jennie Brand of the University of California, Los Angeles and Sarah Burgard of the University of Michigan found workers who have been laid off even once are 35 percent less likely to be involved in community or social organizations than workers who have never lost a job under those circumstances. "
Tags: community
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  • 9 comments
morningdove3202

morningdove3202

October 14 2008, 12:50:55 UTC 12 years ago Edited:  October 14 2008, 12:51:11 UTC

I wonder what a study would find of people leaving their jobs to care for children or elderly family members.....
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

October 14 2008, 15:35:46 UTC 12 years ago

I don't know. I suspect there would be some impact, because those tasks burn up huge amounts of time and energy; but probably lower impact than involuntary layoffs. Most people bounce back better from stress when they're more in control of a situation. When you do everything you're supposed to and you get shafted anyway, there's more grounds for just saying, "Fuck 'em. They don't want me, they better not come crying to me for help." And apply that to the world at large, not just one company, especially if they look for outside support and don't get any.
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

October 14 2008, 15:36:21 UTC 12 years ago

I don't know. I suspect there would be some impact, because those tasks burn up huge amounts of time and energy; but probably lower impact than involuntary layoffs. Most people bounce back better from stress when they're more in control of a situation. When you do everything you're supposed to and you get shafted anyway, there's more grounds for just saying, "Fuck 'em. They don't want me, they better not come crying to me for help." And apply that to the world at large, not just one company, especially if they look for outside support and don't get any. Can't say I blame them, either. There's not much reward to participating in a broken system.