Unemployment, Social Isolation and Emotional Distress. Disentangling a Complex Connection.

Most research carried out to date has convincingly shown the relationship between psychosocial risks and lack of emotional well-being and poor labour market conditions (either in the form of unemployment or in the form of employment insecurity). However, the literature is not so clear when the relationship between poor labour market conditions and social isolation is addressed. Although this relation could seem obvious when unemployed people are considered, the freeing of time produced by unemployment could be an opportunity to build new social relations out of the sphere of paid work. On the other hand, it could happen that stigmatization and shame (i.e. emotional factors) had an influence on the willingness to relate to other people when a person is unemployed or has a unwanted job. The relationship between these three elements (employment situation and conditions, social isolation and lack of emotional well-being) will be addressed in the paper we present to disentangle the association between them. To study this possible (and multiple) association, data obtained through a survey to 3,000 young people between 18 and 29 years old residing in Spain will be used. These data are useful to address social isolation both from the subjective point of view, as unwanted loneliness, and from a more ‘objective’ point of view, linked to the network of personal connections and the support (both emotional and instrumental) obtained from this network. The results show that the social isolation of the young people studied can be attributed to emotional distress and financial problems resulting from reduced income. But the most direct effect between unemployment and isolation is through the disappearance of the sphere of employment as an environment of sociability.