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Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
- l0t0b0r0s 2y agoThey really needed to do a study on this, much less write an article about it? Feels like one of those " no shit " moments where we already knew this.
- niobe 2y agoChicken-egg situation really. At least _some_ of the unemployed are just disengaged and apathetic, at least where I'm from. But we don't need science to tell us humans need purpose and to feel they have some social value. The problem is more fundamentally the industrial era idea of a "job" as something you "have". Just "be" and "do"
- lariattra 2y ago[flagged]
- hackit2 2y agoPeople use their job as an identity - and via extension some use religion, one of the lessons you learn later on in your life is that your identity isn't your job, achievements, money, anything. You identity shouldn't be dependent on any of those things.
- squigz 2y agoYou're missing the point that providing some basis for one's identity is only one aspect of why people draw meaning from a job - as GP points out, it is more about providing purpose and a sense that one is contributing to something Though I do wonder - what, in your opinion, should one's identity be based around?
- hackit2 2y agoHow you choose to react to situations, and how you choose to act in your life is what defines your identity. Not the results you gained by effort or achievement or lack thereof. > that one is contributing to something I feel sorry for people who measure their self based on some consumerism yard stick, it is pathological.
- ilc 2y agoContributing to something can be helping at the local church, or other things of value. I don't consider the urge to help others a negative one. But one shouldn't measure. It is doing the thing to do it for whatever your reasons are, that matters. If I choose to build something to help a kid walk, I am contributing to many things. And yet, I may get paid nothing, and not even care.
- squigz 2y ago> I may get paid nothing, and not even care. Even if you did get paid, it doesn't take away from what you're doing.
- squigz 2y ago> I feel sorry for people who measure their self based on some consumerism yard stick, it is pathological. I mean, if you think this sums up every job everyone has, then I feel sorry for you. Many people are doing laudable work that has nothing to do with "consumerism"
- gadflyinyoureye 2y agoWhile this does seem rather zen, what would it look like?
- ilc 2y agoThe key is to not over invest in work. Work is not life. Work is something you do to enable you to do the things, that are you life. I enjoy programming. I program for a living. But, I also have riders on my employment contract that allow me to code outside of work, and enjoy that. For others, it will be gaming, sailing, anything. The key is to fill that void that your work identity leaves behind with things that you do and control. In doing so, you take control of your life. I am not perfect here, but because I can balance several different things... none of them control me fully, I control me.
- roenxi 2y agoStrictly speaking, the Zen answer is something like you don't have an identity. But in practice, you get a lot more out of basing an identity on the community(s) you want to be part of. It is good to be a little picky. I don't see basing an identity on a professional community as being clever - that community isn't going to do much for its members except maybe help them find a job from time to time.
- kelnos 2y agoI've found pg's essays to be a little hit or miss, but I really like his "Keep Your Identity Small"[0]. After reading it I realized that a lot of things that I had made into my identity were not useful or positive, and only created conflict or stress or anxiety. I like the idea of identity including mostly abstract things. Like, for example, if you donate to charities or spend time volunteering, don't hold "philanthropist" as a part of your identity; instead think of yourself as "generous" or "giving". Instead of a "computer programmer" I think of myself as someone who likes to solve problems or likes to build things. The nice thing about that is it's more flexible, and unlocks creativity and enjoyment in places I don't expect, when I find that I can also solve problems or build things that have nothing to do with computers. And identity should be a frank evaluation; your identity might include some things you consider negative. That's fine; you might be working on those things, or not, or whatever. I'm far from perfect, of course. There are still things I consider part of my identity that maybe I shouldn't, because they constrain me or because they can cause conflict. But that's something to work on another day. [0] https://paulgraham.com/identity.html https://paulgraham.com/identity.html -- though I disagree that discussions about Javascript don't devolve into religious arguments
- jldugger 2y agoBut it really is kind of a vicious cycle: you need social contact to stay mentally healthy, losing your job severs your 9-5 social network. I had to specifically seek out meetups to keep from going loopy. I'd really say it's less about chickens and eggs and more about selection bias: the 12 month unemployed have something extra wrong in their lives.
- giantg2 2y agoWhat 9-5 social network? This seems to be on the decline in my opinion.
- kelnos 2y agoYup. I think purpose is a very important thing. It just really sucks that current civilization tells everyone that a job is the primary thing that will give you purpose. (And a spouse, and a bigger house, and kids, and...) The world is so wondrous, and there are so many other ways to find purpose. Imagination is the only true limit. I'm not saying everyone can live off all these other purposes, but that's part of the problem: linking purpose with livelihood is a recipe for mental health issues.
- lariattra 2y agoI wish there was a way to not read anything about economics on this forum because the responses are always complete naive bullshit like this.
- nine_zeros 2y agoThe employment model needs to change. With the rise of gig work, constant firings and layoffs, large 30 year debts or school debts on people are unsustainable. So is healthcare being tied to employer and 401k tied to employer. The risk is all individual, the gains are all to corporations and lenders aka asset owners. This is unsustainable. Something has to change.
- tbrownaw 2y agoHealth care, yes. A 401k is your money and goes with you if you leave, it's the older pension model that has issues with people jumping around.
- dehrmann 2y agoThe other issue with pensions is they're run and funded by the company. Some benefits are guaranteed, some aren't. It's also a distraction for the company. Their expertise is in making widgets, not running pensions. Plus it opens the door for funding shenanigans and liability (GE comes to mind). This always should have been outsourced to private pension managers or possibly governments.
- vinyl7 2y agoI think the model of staying at a single employer for your whole career then getting a pension is a better model than our current layoff and job hopping every 2-years just to keep up with inflation. Special knowledge of the product is lost, and it takes a lot of time to get up to speed on a new product. Then again, most modern products are throw away garbage that barely lasts two years anyway.
- tbrownaw 2y agoWhat is you make a poor choice of job early in your career? What if your chosen employer runs into bad economic conditions and needs to shrink itself to match? What if something comes up with family and you need to move to a different state? . The 401k model is much less fragile if life goes less then perfectly.
- AStonesThrow 2y agoI have trouble keeping a structured schedule on my own, so I highly value having a reason for doing stuff on time and on the regular. Otherwise I eat when hungry, tinker until distracted, sleep when drowsy, and that tends to isolate me from the real world. I'll say one thing for old-fashioned prime time TV, it anchors the days for people like my parents, and Dad always knows when to find a newscast, yet still get everything done. Me, I try to have some social engagements in public, or get involved in some community groups that meet.
- kelnos 2y agoThat's quite frankly a shame. When I'm not working, I also eat when I'm hungry, tinker until distracted, and sleep when drowsy. But I also stay in touch with friends, exercise, have fun, and it's great. I think the isolating bit is the problem, not the lack of someone bossing you around for 40+ hours a week. I'm not saying your tendency to get into that state is easy to fix, but I think it would be a valuable thing to figure out.
- purple-leafy 2y agoIs your response meant to be satirical in nature? > Otherwise I eat when hungry, tinker until distracted, sleep when drowsy Dog, that’s how it’s MEANT TO BE. Being on a schedule is unnatural. Really have another think about your response
- fragmede 2y agoI don't care what our ancestors did before the invention of time keeping devices. If I only sleep when drowsy, I get on a weird schedule. I'll stay up late tinkering, not getting distracted, and find it's 2am and still not be drowsy. When I do finally sleep at like 4am, the next day is off and I stay up until 6am. And so on and so forth.T gets bad. So I (try to) put myself to bed on a schedule, and things are generally better. A slavish adherence to a schedule might be unhealthy, but so's a 100% impulse driven one. We're humans, not lizards, driven only by instinct, hunting for food on the savannah. We buy our food from the supermarket and have concepts like money and time and consent. The invention of the lightbulb extends the useful part of the day, so if we want to live as our ancestors did, we'd have to give that up and rise with the sun and live in darkness after night has fallen. Personally, I'm not willing to live like that except for camping trips/similar. Nine AM Monday morning meetings aren't my favorite either, but they're part of living in our modern society, some have opted out and are happier for it, but not everyone would be. Scheduling is a tool to help with the coordination problem of doing things with other people. Unless your all live together and get on the same schedule and have also the same cadence for sleep/tinkering/eating, you'll want to coordinate. a time for lunch and sleeping so that paired tinkering can happen.
- morkalork 2y agoThis is seems obvious to anyone who knows someone who has struggled with unemployment.
- qingcharles 2y agoThis also affects a lot of people who have been locked up in jail or prison.
- wakawaka28 2y agoAt least in those cases, you have a clear reason to expect to have a hard time. If you never did anything wrong to anyone and worked hard your whole life, being unemployed through no fault of your own is jarring and upsets a lot of deeply held assumptions about your relationship with society.
- squigz 2y ago> At least in those cases, you have a clear reason to expect to have a hard time. If you never did anything wrong to anyone and worked hard your whole life This sort of assumes everyone who goes to jail deserved it, but there are many people locked up for nonsense like having a gram of weed
- wakawaka28 2y agoHoly tangent Batman! I never said that, and I think your nitpicking insinuates that a majority of people in jail don't belong there. I agree that not everyone in jail deserves to be there, even if they did the thing they were convicted of. But jail space is a scarce resource so I doubt many people in jail are there for such trifles as 1 gram of marijuana. Furthermore, even if someone was in jail over some nothingburger, they would still have more reason to expect to have a hard time with a criminal record and all than someone without a criminal record. This is really my point: If you did nothing wrong yet have difficulties finding a job, it is hard to feel like you have agency in your own life.
- advael 2y agoI know it's important to do science that comes to obvious conclusions, but sometimes the interiority-centric framework of psychology seems comically ill-fit for topics like this In most countries in the world, money is what allows you to have any control over your life. For most people who aren't already rich, their having money relies on being employed, and we tend not to describe people who don't work because they're retired as "unemployed". Thus, people who are long-term unemployed likely feel that they lack control of their lives because this is true. I guess it's good to know that they are aware of their situation. It would be weirder if they weren't
- marcus_holmes 2y agoI have a friend who got lucky in his mid-30's and never worked again. He doesn't suffer from any of the symptoms described in TFA. I know its anecdata, but it seems to be borne out elsewhere. So yeah, I think what the authors are seeing is the effect of chronic poverty, not chronic unemployment.
- raincom 2y agowhat if chronic unemployment leads to poverty?
- advael 2y agoClearly there's some correlation between poverty and unemployment, but since we didn't do an RCT there's just no way to tell causality here
- wakawaka28 2y agoNo way to tell? Really?? It doesn't take a randomized controlled trial to know that there are more poor people who can't find work than rich chaps living on their savings or inheritance by choice.
- advael 2y ago
- giantg2 2y agoI'm employed and still feel little control over my career. Here I was thinking that my disengagement and cynicism was a result of being repeatedly screwed over. I guess that's an aspect of lacking control.
- charles_f 2y agoI was never really unemployed, but even for the short period when I was on a sabbatical, migrated to a new country and didn't work for just over two months, I felt weird about it. I remember seeing all the people going to work, complaining about it, and felt somewhat inadequate, fraudulent and maladapted for not working. So I can only imagine how hard that must be when you experience that on a longer term, get rejections on your applications, and see your financial cushions dwindling (if you were lucky enough to have any).
- kelnos 2y agoI think the situation you experienced was more one of social conditioning and societal expectations. We've had it drilled into our heads from childhood that schooling and adolescence is about preparing us for jobs, and if we don't get a good job, we're worthless and pathetic. There's no actual reason for us to feel that way. It's just a way to ensure that nearly everyone participates in the economy and keeps it humming along. But sure, when you are out of work, actively looking for it, and keep getting rejected, finances dwindling, of course that's going to have a negative effect on your mental health. But the key things about that have nothing to do with work, specifically: it's "constant rejection" and "approaching homelessness".
- charlie0 2y agoThe irony here is that long term employment can also lead to disengagement and apathy. So really, the latter has nothing to do with being employed or not.
- portn0y 2y ago[flagged]
- portn0y 2y ago[flagged]
- LouisSayers 2y agoYou may as well say "Researchers discover: not having money sucks". Personally, I've voluntarily gone without employment for many short stretches, as well as a 2 year stretch, and each time I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Trips to Thailand, Europe, working on my own projects... The only real downside has been watching my bank balance go down. Otherwise, it's great.
- wiradikusuma 2y agoWhy not just say "lack of money"? I know some friends (all female, but that's just how it is culturally) who have been unemployed forever (other than short stints here and there) and don't work at all (they have helpers at home), and yet they're probably the happiest people I know.
- WalterBright 2y agoI retired once for 6 weeks. Was bored to death. Started another business.
- throaway12347 2y agoWhen was this? I'm in a similar situation so I'm curious about your case. Was it worth it?
- jongjong 2y agoI was unemployed for about 10 months and this article resonates with my experience. In my case, I went from a fast upward career trajectory, working on world-class silicon valley projects with famous investors; getting more phone calls from recruiters than I could answer to unemployment and zero opportunities suddenly. I was literally applying to hundreds of jobs per months without any replies. Not even getting first interviews. I had already lost a lot of trust in the system even before I became unemployed. I've experienced stuff that would turn anyone into a conspiracy nut. Unemployment sealed my view of the world as 'Clown World'. It made it hard to take anything seriously. Everything feels fake, constructed, inefficient. Even now that I have a job, I struggle to abandon this mindset, technically, I'm a software engineer but I feel more like an actor who acts the role of a software engineer. Everything feels fake and I'm just playing the role pretending that everything is meaningful and I wonder if people around me are also just acting. I feel like I turned into an office psychopath. Like a split personality disorder. Kind of like how I have a somewhat separate online persona which is a concentration of all my frustrations. I've developed a separate work persona, the stakes just are too high for me to be genuine; I just act genuine; after being genuine for most of my life, it's not difficult to get into character.
- langsoul-com 2y agoEmployment has an added benefit of being a social status, providing funds to live one's life, having structure and community. Those without employment can achieve all those things, it's just much harder and most average people would crumble. Remember the idea that if everyone had a universal basic income. They'll be an explosion of creativity and arts as now everyone is free and liberated. Except that isn't the case. People turn to harder and harder drugs to pass the time.
- brailsafe 2y agoThe beautiful thing about the apathy is that if things turn around, you'll be able to use it to ask for whatever rate sounds most ridiculous and see if it sticks, because you won't be so hung up on yourself. You'll also be less likely to abuse yourself on your employers behalf for the privilege. Especially if you've got a glimpse at how much money gets screwed away on one-off transactions that make your manager look good, you'll understand it's in your best interest to try and get as much as you can out as quickly as possible, just keep increasing one of the digits until it seems unreasonable, and then see if it turns out to be :) You'll be happy you asked for me whether you turn out to do well and love the place, or you get laid off next time or your landlord decides to sell, if you're part of the cohort of millennials and lower priced out of stability.
- plsbenice34 2y agoThe study only claims association: “Prolonged unemployment is associated with control loss and personal as well as social disengagement". This popular article completely lies and claims there is causation ("unemployment leads to"). Absolutely classic.
- AbstractH24 2y agoThe non-monetary should be considered before deciding to take a “career break” because they are easy to overlook and unexpected by some I’ve taken two in recent years, spring-fall 2021, when the world (nyc) was reopening after a year locked in my apartment and expanded unemployment was paying enfough to get by so I wanted to reconnect with the world. And spring-now 2024, where right after getting laid off I fell into fractional contract work that pays enfough to get by, but less than a living and has reduced the urgency to find something else when all I hear is how Both cases, I’ve ended up a bit directionless, lost, and alone (although this time less than last), and with a strain placed on my marriage not because of money, but because I’ve started leaning on my wife too much for my source of meaningful human contact. And after a day of her slogging through that at work, she doesn’t always want to be “on” and have thought provoking conversations or do activities together.