Unemployment payments not only provide an economic buffer for unemployed women but also are effective protection against depression. But welfare is not sufficient to soften the blow of unemployment, a new Cornell University study finds.
“We’ve found that women out of work who received unemployment compensation in 1987 had fewer symptoms of depression in 1992 than already fully employed women in 1987,” says Eunice Rodriguez, a Cornell assistant professor of program evaluation and planning. “But unemployed women receiving welfare-type payments had significantly more depression, even when factors such as previous health status, work history and household income and assets were controlled for in the analysis.”
“Unemployment compensation evidently softens the blow of unemployment on the mental and overall health of people when they lose their jobs. Welfare benefits, on the other hand, may help financially but not psychologically,” says Rodriguez, who studies how different types of social support help people through periods of unemployment and affect levels of depression and mental well-being. “We suspect that welfare has a stigma and is viewed too much like charity to offer protection against mental health problems,” Rodriguez says.
Although unemployment has tumbled since 1990 to about 4 percent nationally in the latest figure, almost 6 million Americans, including more than 461,000 New Yorkers, are jobless. A better understanding of how to protect the health of the unemployed could lead to new policies and interventions, the researchers say.
Rodriguez and her colleagues analyzed data spanning a five-year period on 7,536 men and women who were included in both the 1987 and the 1992 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). The sample included measurements from a depression index, employment status, types of financial assistance or income received, as well as factors such as education, marital status, family income, assets and debts. The results confirm the conclusions from a previous study co-authored by Rodriguez.
The researchers found, just as in other studies, that women in general reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than men, but both men and women reported more symptoms of depression if they were unemployed and receiving welfare. And both sexes reported significantly lower levels of depression if they had jobs they liked or if they were fully retired.
Although Rodriguez has found in other studies that social support from family and friends is a powerful buffer for the unemployed, the latest study found that more social contact only had an effect on men: Unemployed men with more social contacts had lower levels of depression. Also, the older and more highly educated unemployed reported lower levels of depression.