by Dish Staff
Alex Fradera surveys the somewhat counterintuitive findings of new research suggesting that “life satisfaction is higher for couples who share their unemployed predicament, than for couples where only one partner loses their job”:
Maike Luhmann and her colleagues analysed over ten years of longitudinal data from 3000 co-habiting couples in Germany, where one or both partners had gone through an unemployment. … The data supported the shared fate hypothesis [that empathy and support are easier to produce when both parties are in the same boat] – when one partner was unemployed and the second partner remained in work, both parties reported lower life satisfaction than when both partners ended up without a job. The researchers reasoned that when one partner remains in work, it is easier for the unemployed partner to be stigmatised and feel anxiety about abandonment for failing in their duties to the household. In addition, the unemployed person is shunted rapidly out of one life pattern, including a regular routine and social networks, and may find themselves now alone for much of the day, with the obligation to solve their problems and “get back on track”. Moreover, their limited contact with their working partner may be an invitation for friction: just what have you been doing all day?
Luhmann and her colleagues interpreted their results as showing that unemployment “hurts primarily because of its psychological consequences,” rather than being driven by its financial impact
The Dish 