There are innumerable studies indicating people's social group has significant emotional and normative influence. I'm not aware of any study looking at employme

There are innumerable studies indicating people's social group has significant emotional and normative influence. I'm not aware of any study looking at employment specifically, but it's not an unreasonable leap, IMO. Here are some examples: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773049 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23773049 http://web.media.mit.edu/~tod/media/pdfs/EmotionalContagion.pdf http://web.media.mit.edu/~tod/media/pdfs/EmotionalContagion.... I think the idea that unemployment may be socially transmissible to a degree is pretty reasonable. Part of the fear of unemployment is fear of social rejection, due to negative views about unemployment. If others in your peer group are unemployed, that component of the motivation is ameliorated. There are other, stronger, motivations to be employed of course. But it's an effect I would expect to see at the margin. And yes, I would absolutely expect it to work for employment. I see nothing confounding about that.