IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hur/ijarbs/v6y2016i9p344-361.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explanations of Unemployment: An Eight-Country Comparison

Author

Listed:
  • Kostas Mylonas
  • Adrian Furnham
  • Jose Luis Alvaro
  • Sofia Papazoglou
  • William Divale
  • Romeo Zeno Cretu
  • Hector Grad
  • Sonia Gondim
  • Cigdem Leblebici
  • Ania Filus
  • Angela Moniz
  • Anna Mitsostergiou
  • Georgia Kyvetou
  • Emmanouil Konstantinidis
  • Pawel Boski

Abstract

Explanations of unemployment as non-expert beliefs or lay theories, were originally described by Furnham (1982) to follow three axes: individualistic, societal, and fatalistic. Through a revised 19-item version (EoU-R), comprising original and new items with its structure closely resembling the original one we studied 1,689 participants from eight countries (Brazil, United Kingdom, Greece, Poland, USA, Romania, Turkey, and Spain). Internal consistency for a derived three-factor structure (Individualistic, Fatalistic, Societal-Educational) was reached and crosscultural factor equivalence was supported across countries through covariance structure analysis. The composite EoU-R dimension scores were compared across countries, genders, and employment status groups with the largest differences across countries found for the Individualistic factor. Females were found to explain unemployment in terms of SocietalEducational explanations more than males and some interesting interactions also emerged. The Revised Explanations of Unemployment scale can be used cross-culturally and for within cultures comparisons and can prove useful for counseling.

Suggested Citation

  • Kostas Mylonas & Adrian Furnham & Jose Luis Alvaro & Sofia Papazoglou & William Divale & Romeo Zeno Cretu & Hector Grad & Sonia Gondim & Cigdem Leblebici & Ania Filus & Angela Moniz & Anna Mitsostergi, 2016. "Explanations of Unemployment: An Eight-Country Comparison," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 6(9), pages 344-361, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:hur:ijarbs:v:6:y:2016:i:9:p:344-361
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Explanations_of_Unemployment_An_Eight-Country_Comparison.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Explanations_of_Unemployment_An_Eight-Country_Comparison.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Artazcoz, L. & Benach, J. & Borrell, C. & Cortès, I., 2004. "Unemployment and Mental Health: Understanding the Interactions among Gender, Family Roles, and Social Class," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(1), pages 82-88.
    2. Jahoda,Marie, 1982. "Employment and Unemployment," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521285865, September.
    3. Panagiotis Petrakis, 2012. "The Greek Economy and the Crisis," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-642-21175-1, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johnny Runge & Nathan Hudson-Sharp, 2020. "Public Understanding of Economics and Economic Statistics," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Occasional Papers ESCOE-OP-03, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liliya Leopold & Thomas Leopold & Clemens M. Lechner, 2016. "Do Immigrants Suffer More from Job Loss? Unemployment and Subjective Well-Being in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 842, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    2. Senhu Wang & Wanying Ling & Zhuofei Lu & Yuewei Wei & Min Li & Ling Gao, 2022. "Can Volunteering Buffer the Negative Impacts of Unemployment and Economic Inactivity on Mental Health? Longitudinal Evidence from the United Kingdom," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-12, June.
    3. Matteo Picchio & Michele Ubaldi, 2024. "Unemployment and health: A meta‐analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1437-1472, September.
    4. Roni Strier, 2014. "Unemployment and Fatherhood: Gender, Culture and National Context," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(5), pages 395-410, September.
    5. Tattarini, Giulia & Grotti, Raffaele, 2022. "Gender roles and selection mechanisms across contexts: a comparative analysis of the relationship between unemployment, self‐perceived health and gender," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 44(3), pages 641-662.
    6. Liliya Leopold & Thomas Leopold & Clemens M. Lechner, 2017. "Do Immigrants Suffer More From Job Loss? Unemployment and Subjective Well-being in Germany," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(1), pages 231-257, February.
    7. Kamerāde, Daiga & Wang, Senhu & Burchell, Brendan & Balderson, Sarah Ursula & Coutts, Adam, 2019. "A shorter working week for everyone: How much paid work is needed for mental health and well-being?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    8. Daiga KamerÄ de & Matthew R Bennett, 2018. "Rewarding Work: Cross-National Differences in Benefits, Volunteering During Unemployment, Well-Being and Mental Health," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(1), pages 38-56, February.
    9. Haobin Fan & Xuanyi Nie, 2020. "Impacts of Layoffs and Government Assistance on Mental Health during COVID-19: An Evidence-Based Study of the United States," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-23, September.
    10. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    11. Lídia Farré & Francesco Fasani & Hannes Mueller, 2018. "Feeling useless: the effect of unemployment on mental health in the Great Recession," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, December.
    12. Thomas Barnay & Éric Defebvre, 2019. "Gender Differences in the Influence of Mental Health on Job Retention," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 33(4), pages 507-532, December.
    13. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    14. Concetta Russo & Marco Terraneo, 2020. "Mental Well-being Among Workers: A Cross-national Analysis of Job Insecurity Impact on the Workforce," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 152(2), pages 421-442, November.
    15. Trine Filges & Anu Siren & Torben Fridberg & Bjørn C. V. Nielsen, 2020. "Voluntary work for the physical and mental health of older volunteers: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 16(4), December.
    16. Lars Kunze & Nicolai Suppa, 2014. "Bowling Alone or Bowling at All? The Effect of Unemployment on Social Participation," Ruhr Economic Papers 0510, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Laura Langner, 2022. "Desperate Housewives and Happy Working Mothers: Are Parent-Couples with Equal Income More Satisfied throughout Parenthood? A Dyadic Longitudinal Study," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 36(1), pages 80-100, February.
    18. Laura M. Wade-Bohleber & Carmen Duss & Aureliano Crameri & Agnes von Wyl, 2020. "Associations of Social and Psychological Resources with Different Facets of Chronic Stress: A Study with Employed and Unemployed Adolescents," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-17, July.
    19. Hafid Ballafkih & Joop Zinsmeister & Martha Meerman, 2017. "A Job and a Sufficient Income Is Not Enough: The Needs of the Dutch Precariat," SAGE Open, , vol. 7(4), pages 21582440177, December.
    20. Dominik Stroukal, 2016. "A longitudinal analysis of the effect of unemployment on health," International Journal of Economic Sciences, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, vol. 5(2), pages 55-68, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; comparison;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hur:ijarbs:v:6:y:2016:i:9:p:344-361. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hassan Danial Aslam (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://hrmars.com/index.php/pages/detail/IJARBSS .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.