SummaryMarie Jahoda's latent deprivation model was tested with a representative sample of the German population (N ¼ 998). As expected, employees reported high levels of time structure, social contact, collective purpose, and activity not only in comparison to unemployed persons but also in comparison to persons who are out of the labor force (i.e., students, homemakers, retirees). Even unskilled manual workers reported more access to these ''latent functions'' than persons without employment. For the fifth of Jahoda's dimensions, identity/status, no significant differences between employed persons and persons who are out of the labor force could be identified. However, unemployed persons reported less status than all other groups did. Thus, Jahoda's model was clearly endorsed for four of the five latent functions of employment and partly endorsed for the fifth function. All variables in the model correlated significantly with distress, as expected. Demographic correlates of the manifest and latent functions were also analyzed: Access to the latent functions was best among young men from higher social classes who lived in an intimate relationship in a comparatively large household with children.
The present paper is concerned with the effects of incongruence between a person's level of employment commitment (measured with scales of work involvement, Protestant work ethic or similar concepts) and his or her current employment situation (employed or not employed). We hypothesize that this kind of incongruence (a) is a typical characteristic of the unemployment situation and (b) is systematically associated with diminished well‐being and mental health. Meta‐analyses of empirical data endorse both hypotheses. (a) Employed people show only marginally stronger levels of employment commitment than unemployed people (d = 0.11, equivalent to r = .05). Both groups are characterized by high mean levels of employment commitment. Therefore, unemployed people are in an incongruent situation, while employed people are not. (b) Incongruent levels of employment commitment, that is, high levels among the unemployed and low levels among the employed, are significantly associated with psychological distress (mixed symptoms of distress: r = .19; depression: r = .19; anxiety: r = .14; subjective well‐being/life satisfaction: r = .13; self‐esteem: r = .08). In sum, available cross‐sectional data clearly endorse the incongruence model. Meta‐analyses of longitudinal data, although based on small sample sizes, are also consistent with the model.
Unemployment has serious negative effects on psychological health, and yet the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. According to the latent deprivation model, it is the lack of latent benefits of work associated with unemployment, which leads to psychological distress. In a four-wave study among employed persons, unemployed persons, and persons out of the labour force (OLF) (N T1 = 1,026), this assumption was tested cross-sectionally as well as longitudinally. Multiple mediation analyses show the expected differences in distress between the employed, unemployed, and OLF persons and indicate that part of this difference can be explained by differential access to the latent benefits. Furthermore, cross-lagged structural equation modelling confirms that a deprivation of latent benefits leads to a decrease in psychological health 6 months later. Findings regarding the different quality of the latent benefits in relation to each other and over time when predicting psychological health are discussed.
Using a Web-based survey, the authors tested M. Jahoda's (1981, 1982, 1997) latent deprivation model among employed, unemployed, and out-of-the-labor-force (OLF) people. The model predicted that employment is the main provider of 5 specific subconstructs of experience important to mental health: time structure, social contact, collective purpose, status, and activity. As expected, deprivation of these latent functions correlated with distress not only among employed and unemployed people, but also among OLF people. OLF people reported significantly more latent deprivation than did employed people, but they reported significantly less latent deprivation than did unemployed people. Furthermore, latent deprivation mediated the negative effects of unemployment and OLF status on mental health. When the authors statistically controlled the influence of manifest deprivation, the effect of latent deprivation on mental health remained stable.
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