Unemployment: The impact on health
6 October 2008
Read by 1561 persons
When it is said that unemployment is a French disease, it is not far from the truth. The consequences of unemployment on the individual and their health are far from benign. As proof, this summary of a report by a group chaired by Jacques Commaille, Research Director at the CNRS, (group analyzing public policies-ENS Cachan) in July 1999.
One of the significant consequences of unemployment on the individual, especially when it is prolonged, is financial exclusion linked to the loss of income. A factor among others of integration into a social category, the loss of purchasing power can be considered an exclusion from one's group. It is commonly said that work is a structuring element of social life. Very concretely, the absence of work distances the former employee from their network of acquaintances, which accentuates their feeling of being left out and their impression of uselessness. This is reinforced by the image that society of "active" people reflects back to them and, more harshly, their own family or friends. This is what Robert Holcman notes when he writes: "The suspicion of laziness or incompetence linked to the absence of professional activity has not yet completely disappeared, despite the generalization and massification of unemployment".
This experienced and endured social uselessness has significant consequences on the health of the job seeker.
For some years now, there have been a considerable number of studies on the impact of unemployment on the health of job seekers. They unanimously show that this period has significant consequences on the health of individuals. They thus make it possible to answer a question often raised and which Robert Holcman summarizes as follows: "Did one become unemployed because one fell ill? Is one ill because one became unemployed? Or both at the same time?"
While employed people often report suffering from arthrosis, rheumatism or intense fatigue related to their job, unemployed people complain of asthma but above all of depression and symptoms of malaise (nervousness, anxiety, anguish, headaches, insomnia, dizziness...).
In a recent study on the health repercussions of job loss or its threat, a team of occupational physicians in Grenoble arrives at the same conclusions. From the observation of five companies subject to social plans, they identify the symptoms suffered by individuals faced with job loss. This work is particularly interesting because it allows for follow-up of employees before and after their dismissal. If psychosomatic and mental pathologies dominate, they note that several other symptoms are also present:
- In the sphere of psychic disorders: persistent sleep disorders; increased anxiety; panic states; anxiety attacks with the appearance of phobias ("panic fear of losing one's job"); worsening of depressive states.
- In the digestive sphere: epigastric cramps; complications of gastric ulcers (perforation)...
- In the dermatological sphere: extension of psoriasis, appearance of eczema, giant urticaria attacks.
- In the cardiovascular system: myocardial infarction and threat syndrome.
- Worsening of migraines
- In the behavioral sphere: frequent aggravation of alcoholism and smoking; physical violence towards others and towards oneself, suicides
Once the person is dismissed, the pathologies already present in the individual develop, or even transform. However, the resumption of an activity is not synonymous with a total remission of the health problems experienced by the unemployed.
As Jean Maisondieu notes, returning to work often results in exhaustion for these new employees. In addition to the difficulties in simply resuming a work rhythm (eight-hour effort, time constraints...), difficulties that are accentuated when the period of inactivity has been long, they seem to suffer a counter-shock to the psychological suffering they experienced during their period of inactivity. He therefore concludes "that it is necessary to know this and to take it into account in order to avoid asking too much of them and to see them plunge into illness, or to despair at seeing them falter and end up believing that they are not really capable of leading a normal life".
And several elements seem to indicate that unemployment is one of the salient factors associated with suicides or suicide attempts. Thus, in France, inactive men aged 45 to 50 are structurally privileged victims of suicide. Similarly, the socio-professional categories where the risk of unemployment is highest are also those where the suicide rate is highest.
Posted on September 30, 2008
blogemploi.com
One of the significant consequences of unemployment on the individual, especially when it is prolonged, is financial exclusion linked to the loss of income. A factor among others of integration into a social category, the loss of purchasing power can be considered an exclusion from one's group. It is commonly said that work is a structuring element of social life. Very concretely, the absence of work distances the former employee from their network of acquaintances, which accentuates their feeling of being left out and their impression of uselessness. This is reinforced by the image that society of "active" people reflects back to them and, more harshly, their own family or friends. This is what Robert Holcman notes when he writes: "The suspicion of laziness or incompetence linked to the absence of professional activity has not yet completely disappeared, despite the generalization and massification of unemployment".
This experienced and endured social uselessness has significant consequences on the health of the job seeker.
For some years now, there have been a considerable number of studies on the impact of unemployment on the health of job seekers. They unanimously show that this period has significant consequences on the health of individuals. They thus make it possible to answer a question often raised and which Robert Holcman summarizes as follows: "Did one become unemployed because one fell ill? Is one ill because one became unemployed? Or both at the same time?"
While employed people often report suffering from arthrosis, rheumatism or intense fatigue related to their job, unemployed people complain of asthma but above all of depression and symptoms of malaise (nervousness, anxiety, anguish, headaches, insomnia, dizziness...).
In a recent study on the health repercussions of job loss or its threat, a team of occupational physicians in Grenoble arrives at the same conclusions. From the observation of five companies subject to social plans, they identify the symptoms suffered by individuals faced with job loss. This work is particularly interesting because it allows for follow-up of employees before and after their dismissal. If psychosomatic and mental pathologies dominate, they note that several other symptoms are also present:
- In the sphere of psychic disorders: persistent sleep disorders; increased anxiety; panic states; anxiety attacks with the appearance of phobias ("panic fear of losing one's job"); worsening of depressive states.
- In the digestive sphere: epigastric cramps; complications of gastric ulcers (perforation)...
- In the dermatological sphere: extension of psoriasis, appearance of eczema, giant urticaria attacks.
- In the cardiovascular system: myocardial infarction and threat syndrome.
- Worsening of migraines
- In the behavioral sphere: frequent aggravation of alcoholism and smoking; physical violence towards others and towards oneself, suicides
Once the person is dismissed, the pathologies already present in the individual develop, or even transform. However, the resumption of an activity is not synonymous with a total remission of the health problems experienced by the unemployed.
As Jean Maisondieu notes, returning to work often results in exhaustion for these new employees. In addition to the difficulties in simply resuming a work rhythm (eight-hour effort, time constraints...), difficulties that are accentuated when the period of inactivity has been long, they seem to suffer a counter-shock to the psychological suffering they experienced during their period of inactivity. He therefore concludes "that it is necessary to know this and to take it into account in order to avoid asking too much of them and to see them plunge into illness, or to despair at seeing them falter and end up believing that they are not really capable of leading a normal life".
And several elements seem to indicate that unemployment is one of the salient factors associated with suicides or suicide attempts. Thus, in France, inactive men aged 45 to 50 are structurally privileged victims of suicide. Similarly, the socio-professional categories where the risk of unemployment is highest are also those where the suicide rate is highest.
Posted on September 30, 2008
blogemploi.com
