Unemployment and Social Integration: Analysing the Impact of Financial Strain, Social Roles, and Identity

Abstract

Relations to family and friends are a key dimension of an individual’s social integration and, by extension, are crucial for the social cohesion of societies. Based on that principle, this study explores the effects of unemployment on close personal relations and asks whether negative effects of unemployment are primarily explicable as financial losses or social aspects of identity. This analytical approach goes beyond analysing the direct effects of unemployment through differentiating effects by gender, household composition, and individual work and family values. In doing so, it examines the channels through which unemployment has the potential to erode social relations.