A Research Project Synopsis on

THE IMPACT OF UNEMPLOYMENT ON MENTAL HEALTH OF

YOUNG ADULTS OF EAST KHASI HILLS DISTRICT, SHILLONG.

Submitted by

NAME: MANASHI SARMA

ENROLMENT NO : 2002918961

REGIONAL CENTRE: SHILLONG-18

GUIDE: MISS WANDAHUN LYWART

(CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST)

MASTER OF ARTS (PSYCHOLOGY)

(MPCE- 016)

APRIL 2023

DISCIPLINE OF PSYCHOLOGY

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY

MAIDAN GARHI, NEW DELHI- 110068

INTRODUCTION:

Mental health is a term used to describe emotional, psychological, and social well-being.
The quality of a person's mental health is often measured by how adaptively they can
cope with everyday stressors.

Mental health allows people to use their abilities, be productive, make decisions, and
play an active role in their communities.

Having poor mental health is often confused with having a mental illness. But mental
health actually refers to a person's state of mental well-being whether or not they have a
psychiatric condition (Holmes, 2022).

Mental health problems can have a wide range of causes. It's likely that for many
people there is a complicated combination of factors – although different people may be
more deeply affected by certain things than others. Unemployment or losing a job is one
of the factors that could potentially result in a period of poor mental health.

WHAT IS UNEMPLOYMENT?

Unemployment is a term referring to individuals who are employable and actively

seeking a job but are unable to find a job. Included in this group are those people in the
workforce who are working but do not have an appropriate job. Usually measured by
the unemployment rate, which is dividing the number of unemployed people by the total
number of people in the workforce, unemployment serves as one of the indicators of a
country’s economic status.

The term “unemployment” is often misunderstood, as it includes people who are

waiting to return to a job after being discharged, yet it does not include individuals who
have stopped looking for work in the past four weeks due to various reasons such as
leaving work to pursue higher education, retirement, disability, and personal issues.
Also people who are not actively seeking a job but do want to work are not classified as
unemployed (CFI Team, 2023).

TYPES OF UNEMPLOYMENT

Different types of unemployment are:

• Cyclical Unemployment

• Frictional Unemployment

• Structural Unemployment

• Voluntary Unemployment

• Demand Deficient Unemployment

IMPACT OF UNEMPLOYMENT ON MENTAL HEALTH

Unemployment and mental health are two aspects of life that sometimes take a lot
of effort to harmonize. People who have never experienced the unemployment and
mental health combination, or have only experienced it for a short time, tend to
misinterpret it, they think that being unemployed is a kind of vacation period in
which the individual is free from work-related stress, is rested, and has a lot of
free time to enjoy just because they are not working. However, those who have
gone through long periods of unemployment or are doing so right now, know
that unemployment and vacations have very little in common. Each unemployed
person lives the experience in their own way and there can be great differences
depending on the circumstances of each one. Age, family or economic burdens,
level of education, among others, are factors that can have a negative or positive
influence and triggers stress response on the already difficult experience of being
unemployed (Rodriguez, 2021).

Losing a job can be stressful in many ways and can impact several aspects of
life. It not only leads to uncertainty, financial loss, job search stress but also
impacts self-esteem negatively and in many cases trigger identity crisis. Such can
be the impact that a person may feel uncomfortable mingling with other people,
attending social events or even talking to their family members fearing judgment
from them. Prolonged unemployment can even be more devastating as after
remaining jobless for a considerable period of time, a person becomes hopeless,
pessimistic and demotivated which over a period of time can affect their
personality.

Some people enjoy being unemployed. No deadlines, no impatient customers to wait on,
no orders to take. But for most of them, losing a job is incredibly stressful. In fact, a
growing number of studies suggest unemployment can lead to a host of serious mental
illnesses. For all the talk about on-the-job safety these days, perhaps it's time to think
about the opposite problem: off-the-job safety.

When a person encounters job loss, it can create a string of unwanted and sometimes
unexpected repercussions. Some of the most common responses to job loss include:

• Anger

• Shock

• Confusion

• Sadness and grief

• Bargaining and compromise

• Poor self-esteem

• Feeling lost and aimless

Those at the most risk for mental health challenges after job loss are those for whom
unemployment is an immediate threat to survival. People with fewer financial resources
and those who perceive more financial strain from unemployment are less satisfied with
their lives, according to a meta-analysis led by Frances McKee-Ryan, PhD, a professor
of management at the University of Nevada, Reno (Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol.
90, No. 1, 2005 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15641890/) ).

“Losing a job and being unemployed for a long period of time is a psychological trauma
and a financial trauma, and the two are closely intertwined,” says Carl Van Horn, PhD,
a professor of public policy and an expert on workforce and unemployment policy at
Rutgers University. Mental health support can be life saving, he says. While
psychologists can’t solve the economic problem, “they can certainly help people cope
and manage it.”

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE:

Review of related literature is an essential aspect in the development of research. It

enables the researchers to familiarize with the summary of the previous researches, the
writings of recognized experts, what is already known and what is still unknown and
untested and provides background for the development of the present study and brings
the researcher to the proximity of solution to the problem. The reviews of related
studies have been analysed in this context.

(Karsten I. Paul, 2009) examined the effect of unemployment on mental health with
meta-analytic methods across 237 cross-sectional and 37 longitudinal studies. The
findings reveal that men and people with blue-collar-jobs were more distressed by
unemployment than women and people of white-collar-jobs. Furthermore, the negative
effect of unemployment on mental health was stronger in countries with a weak level of
economic development, unequal income distributions, or weak unemployment
protection systems compared to other countries. The result of the study also reveals that
unemployment is not only correlated to distress but also causes it.

(Vanessa Puig-Barrachina, 2011) in a cross-sectional study, investigated the impact of

unemployment on mental health outcomes among vulnerable groups, using the 2006
Catalonian Health Survey (N=8,591). Findings of the research indicate that
unemployment has a greater adverse effect on mental health of male manual workers,
single mothers, main earner women, manual workers without unemployment benefits
for both sexes.

(Melchior M.a, 2015) found that increases in unemployment disturbs the mental health
and impacts population levels of substance use, particularly in young adults with low
educational attainment.

(Kyle T. Ganson, 2021) studied to estimate the association between job insecurity and
symptoms of anxiety and depression among U.S young adults amidst the COVID-19
pandemic. The researchers conducted a cross-sectional Household Public Survey
(n=4,852) on young adults aged 18-26 years. The result of the study showed that U.S
young adults experience a significant mental health burdens as a result of job insecurity
amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Marcus, 2013) studied the effects of unemployment on the mental health of spouses,
using German Socio-Economic Panel Study data. The result of the study reveals that
unemployment decreases the mental health of both spouses almost as much as for the
directly affected individuals.

(Piovani, 2019) using the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data for 2013 and
2014, evaluated the relationship between the labor market and psychological well-being
in the United States from a gender perspective. More specifically, the researcher used a
logit regression methodology to estimate the impact of unemployment on the likelihood
of developing depression and anxiety for both men and women. The findings of the
study indicate that unemployment has a similar, negative effect on the mental health of
both men and women.

(Ana Virgolino, 2022) studied the association between unemployment and mental
health. The main objectives of this study was to review, integrate and summarize
evidence about the association between unemployment and anxiety disorders, mood
disorders and suicidal behavior and also to identify variables affecting this association.
A total of 55.7% of the studies were conducted in Europe; 91.4% supported a positive
association between increased unemployment rates and anxiety, mood disorders or
suicidal behavior. Men and young adults were most severely affected by unemployment.

(Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat1*, 2020) investigated the mental health on employed and
unemployed youth of Kashmir. MH-38 inventory was used to evaluate mental health
status of the subjects. The findings of the study showed that the two groups significantly
differed on all the sub scales of mental health. The result showed unemployed with
higher level of anxiety, depression and loss of behavioural/emotional control,
psychological distress and have showed lower levels of life satisfaction and psychological
well-being scores in comparison with employed group. Therefore, it was found that
unemployed youth are more prone to mental health disorders and health related issues.

(Ouzounakis Petros, 2015) investigated the effects of unemployment, especially among

young people and the prevention thereof. The results of the study reveals that the effects
of unemployment are proving disastrous for the mental health of young people and
decreases their self-esteem, losing part of their social life, their relationships are made
dysfunctional and eventually losing their quality of life. The researcher further
suggested that it is necessary to support the unemployed youth by a team of experts, so
that young people be enable to reevaluate their self-image and promote their quality of
life.

(Ibraheem, 2022) assessed the mental health of unemployed people among Tikrit cities.
A cross sectional study was conducted in Tikrit city from 1st of November 2018 till end
of March 2019 among unemployed people in Tikrit. A sample size of 200 of which 123
were males and 78 were females were selected by simple random sample. A collection of
data was done by a questionnaire which administered by interview and by e-mail
questionnaire. Results of the findings reveal that from the total of 200 unemployed
people, the mental health of (39%) have a bad mental health and (61%) have a good
mental health.

(Vicky H.M. Bartelink, 2019) studied to obtain a better understanding of the association
between unemployment among young people and mental health. 20 studies were
assessed on methodological quality. After an analysis of cross-sectional studies (N=5),
the results showed an association between unemployment among young people and
mental health. An effect of unemployment on mental health was found when
considering cohort studies (N=12) that did not control for confounders (7/7). When
controlling for confounders except mental health at baseline, this effect decreased in
most studies leading to mixed results, although the majority (6/8) still found an effect.
However, when taking mental health at baseline into account as one of the confounders,
only minority of studies (3/8) found a significant effect of unemployment on mental
health.

(Saleem, 2018) undertook a study to look into the social and psychological impacts of
unemployment on educated youth. Primary data was collected from a sample of n=100;
the age interval of the respondents was (20-31) from Lahore city, Pakistan. The gender
distribution was 71% males and 29% females. All participants were educated and
unemployed. The results of the study showed that due to unemployment youth is
confronting problems such as increasing level of discomfort, contraction in social circle,
inferiority complex, hindrance in personal growth, low self-esteem, increasing level of
anxiety, unhappiness and mental health problems.

From the review of related literature, various studies have pointed out the impact of
unemployment on mental health and examined it in the context of gender, spouses, age
and psychological aspects and found that unemployment has a massive impact on the
mental health of unemployed and that the result may differ with respect to the length of
unemployment experience. In the light of the above observation, the researcher belief,
that no such studies have been carried out so far to examine the impact of
unemployment on mental health of young adults in East Khasi Hills District Shillong.
Therefore, the present study emerged a felt need.

RATIONALE/SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY:

Mental health is more important now than ever before, it impacts every areas of lives.
The importance of good mental health ripples into everything a person does, think or
say. Maintaining a positive mental health and treating any mental health conditions is
crucial to stabilizing constructive behaviors, emotions and thoughts. So focusing on
mental health care can increase productivity, enhance self-image and improve
relationships. Since unemployment is one of the factors contributing towards the mental
health, it is important to know the status of a person’s mental health conditions during
this period of time. Several researches confirms unemployed people were more likely to
report poor mental health than those on furlough or in employment.

Unemployment has been shown to have adverse effect on youth. Being unemployed at a
young age can have long-lasting, negative effects in terms of career paths and future
earnings. Unemployed young people are at high of depression and other mental health
problems. Measurement is essential for public health to understand population health
status and trends over time as well as to measure the effectiveness of interventions to
improve it.

Analysis and an understanding of the mental health needs of young adults is important
for policy design. To improve mental health status and coping abilities for long-term
unemployed youth, supporting unemployed youth can help reduce the severity of
mental health and provide affordable, effective and feasible strategies to promote,
protect and restore mental health.

This research study will try to find out the impact of unemployment on mental health
among young adults by assessing the level of mental health during this period of time.
The research study will also help the unemployed youths to identify the factors
contributing to their mental health during unemployment and to cope up with the
mental well-being by seeking help on time and terminating serious mental health issues.
Lastly, the information gained from the study can help the mental health care providers
to come up with much effective future interventions and support for the unemployed.

METHODOLOGY:

RESEAECH PROBLEM:

The present research aims to study the impact of unemployment on mental health of
young adults in East Khasi Hills District, Shillong.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

The objectives of the study are as follows:

1. To find out the status/level of mental health of unemployed young adults.

2. To compare the mental health level between the male and female unemployed young
adults.
3. To find out the most bothersome factor contributing to the mental health of
unemployed young adults.

HYPOTHESIS:

There will be no significant difference on the mental health of both male and female
young adults.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS:

1. Mental Health: It refers to a state of mental well-being that enables people to

cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and
contribute to their community.
2. Unemployment: It refers to a state in which an individual seeks employment but
is unsuccessful.
3. Young adults: It refers to a unique developmental period that occurs between the
ages of 18 and 25 years.

SAMPLE:

Sample is a subject, people, observations, etc. selected from a population. By studying

the sample, it is hoped to draw valid conclusions or inferences about the larger group in
an unbiased manner. For the current research study, convenience sampling process is
being used.

This research study is proposed to be conducted on young adults of age group 18-25
years. The total sample size will be approximately 100 in which 50 will be male and 50
will be female.

Inclusion criteria:

 Unemployed young adults aged 18-25 years only.

Exclusion criteria:

 Unemployed adults above the age group of 25 years.

 Disabled unemployed young adults.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

The present research study will be conducted to examine the impact of unemployment
on mental health of young adults in East Khasi Hills District, Shillong. The study will be
intentionally done on young adults between the ages 18 and 25 years since
unemployment has been regarded as one of the most stressful situation among this age
group. The present study used convenience sampling method to obtain the information
concerning the study. Conclusion will be drawn from the information to be received
from the sample, size, tool, data, analysis and interpretation.

TESTS/TOOLS:

Keeping in view the objectives of the research study and to suit the specific needs of the
research as well as the sample to be studied, General Health Questionnaire will be used
for the study.

DATA ANALYSIS:

Data will be scored manually and further statistical analysis will be carried out using SPSS
software.

REFERENCES:

1. Holmes, L. (2022, March 04). What Is Mental Health? Retrieved from verywell mind:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-mental-health-2330755

2. CFI Team. (2023, April 2). Unemployment. Retrieved from CFI:

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/economics/unemployment/

3. Rodriguez, R. S. (2021, November 26). Unemployment and mental health: 5 ways it can
affect you. Retrieved from ifeel:
https://ifeelonline.com/en/occupational-health/unemployment-and-mental-health/#

4. Uniyal, P. (2023, February 02). Layoff season: How losing a job impacts one's mental
health. Retrieved from Hindustan Times:
https/www.hindustantimes.com/lifestyle/health/layoff-season-how-losing-a-job-impacts-
one-s-mental-health-101675339378029.html

5. Pappas, S. (2020, October 1). The toll of job loss. Retrieved from American
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6. Karsten I. Paul, K. M. (2009). Unemployment impairs mental health: Meta-analyses.

Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Pages 264-282.
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8. Melchior M.a, b. ·. (2015). Unemployment and Substance Use in Young Adults: Does
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10. Marcus, J. (2013). The effect of unemployment on the mental health of spouses –
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11. Piovani, N. A.-A. (2019). The Gender Impact of Unemployment on Mental Health: A
Micro Analysis for the United States. Forum for Social Economics, 505-529.

12. Ana Virgolino, J. C. (2022). Lost in transition: a systematic review of the association
between unemployment and mental health. Journal of Mental Health, 432-444.

13. Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat1*, D. J. (2020). Impact of Unemployment on the Mental Health
of Youth in the Kashmir Valley. Journal of Psychology & Psychotherapy.

14. Ouzounakis Petros, M. A. (2015). Effects of unemployment in mental health of young

people. American Journal of Nursing Science, pp. 27-30.

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PHYSICAL HEALTH IN TIKRIT CITY. HIV Nursing, Vol.22 No.2.

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