Incongruence as an explanation for the negative mental health effects of unemployment: Meta‐analytic evidence

Abstract

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.

The Impacts of Household Financial Stress, Resilience, Social Support, and Other Adversities on the Psychological Distress of Western Sydney Parents

“…Numerous studies have shown an association between unemployment and poor mental health status [32], although few have specifically focused on the problems faced by unemployed parents and their health outcomes [29]. Notably, parent job loss and inability to meet mortgage payments were not found to be cooccurring events within the current analysis, suggesting that their relationship with high respondent distress represents distinct phenomena.…”

“…Possibly more important to the economic security of Western Sydney households, however, are longer-term structural factors affecting the region; jobs "shortfalls," transport inequities, lower average incomes (affecting financial accumulation), and associated mortgage/housing "distress." Although household financial strain can adversely affect the psychosocial development of children [4,5], less is known about the relative effects of such hardship on parental mental health, particularly populations that may have greater exposure to economic downturns and threats to employment [14,29]. Overall, our findings show that when controlling for other potential confounders, financial stressors showed the strongest relationship with high parental psychological distress.…”

“…The "latent deprivation model" [33] posits that employment supports five key functions that underpin positive mental health (social contact, time structure, collective purpose, status, and activity), with unemployment being incompatible with these functions. Evidence in support of a more recent "incongruence model" of employment-related health [29] suggests that poor mental health is the result of dissonance that individuals experience when there is a lack of congruence between their level of employment commitment and their current employment situation. This may be an important mediating factor in the current finding for parental job loss, with the felt need to provide for family financial/material needs being dissonant with current employment status.…”

Organizational commitment and the well-being of temporary agency workers: A longitudinal study

“…Similarly, research on work-related over-commitment found that health complaints resulting from a lack of balance between efforts put into one's job and rewards received are stronger when commitment is high (Aust et al, 1999;Joksimovic et al, 1999). Finally, employment commitment aggravates the negative effects of unemployment on mental health (Paul & Moser, 2006). All of this evidence suggests that being committed moderates the negative effects of change and transitions.…”

Job Search and (Re)employment: Taking the Time-varying Nature of Job-search Intensity into Consideration

“…Besides socio-demographic variables, work involvement was the only characteristic in our model measured only at the first time point. We based this decision on the meta-analysis of longitudinal data which showed that average test-retest correlation of work involvement is relatively high (r=0.59 for the average time period of 9.4 months, Paul & Moser, 2006), indicating a stable, trait-like construct. Cronbach α for this scale was 0.75.…”