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In the 1980s trade unions developed a policy commitment to the unemployed, but research suggests that unions are seen solely as organisations for people in work. What benefits and services can trade unions usefully provide for the unemployed? How can trade union provision for the unemployed be improved? What organisational structures might be developed for the unemployed? These are the questions that this article attempts to address. Providing job information, retraining and legal services appear to be the most promising way forward. Moreover, there is support among the unemployed for these to be provided within a trade union context. However, finance is a problem because the unemployed cannot pay for what they receive. Unions should see provision for the unemployed as an investment in goodwill which is likely to have a pay‐off in terms of future membership stability and strength.

Aims to present the findings of a recent study into the availability of social support to unemployed female managers. It is widely recognised that social support is an important factor in determining well‐being during unemployment, yet its role in managerial unemployment has received very limited attention. Previous research has demonstrated that social support is of particular importance to women, with a strong emphasis on emotional support. This paper investigates the experiences of 115 unemployed female managers in terms of social support, an area which, despite its importance, has to‐date received no specific attention. The findings indicate that the social support available to unemployed female managers is not only unsupportive but is severely restricted because of their unique position in society.

With a particular focus on cultural understandings and the concepts behind welfare policies, the purpose of this paper is to analyse commonalities and dissimilarities in the patterns of social policy, and more precisely youth unemployment policies, in Sweden and Germany.

A document analysis of Swedish and German youth unemployment policies was conducted with regard to how the two welfare regimes’ policies define the underlying problem, the instruments through which this problem is tackled, and the aim of youth activation policies.

The findings show congruency concerning the definitions of the problem of youth unemployment, in which the unemployed are regarded as lacking in discipline, as well as in the policies through which the problem is tackled: through conditionality and pastoral power as policy tools. The solution of the problem on the other hand, found in the notion of the ideal worker to be produced, diverges between active entrepreneurs in one country, and blue-collar workers in the other. The authors conclude that the introduction of supranational policy concepts is not a matter of mere implementation, and that concepts like activation are reinterpreted according to differing cultural ideologies and accommodated into the context of particular welfare states.

This paper provides an innovative framework for the understanding of the influence of cultural understandings on policy making, but also on challenges facing activation governance on the one hand and European Union policy initiatives and transnational policy diffusion on the other.

The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

The purpose of this paper is to use the Health and Retirement Study to examine the social security (SS) claiming decision of older Americans, with a focus on the behavior of the unemployed.

Using a duration model first, and a bivariate probit framework then, the author investigates whether older unemployed individuals lacking liquidity use SS benefits as a safety net in order to finance consumption during an unemployment episode, even if they do not retire at the same time. In this way, SS might be thought as a form of unemployment insurance (UI) which would allow them to maintain their standard of living during their job search.

The author finds evidence of a claiming pattern specific to the unemployed: they claim sooner than full-time workers, even when they do not retire at the same time. They also seem to discontinue this behavior when their access to UI is extended, which gives support to the author’s hypothesis that the unemployed workers, who lack liquidity, claim their SS benefits even if they do not wish to retire, as a source of alternative unemployment benefits.

By focusing on the SS claiming behavior of the unemployed rather than on their retirement patterns, this paper sheds light on the social insurance role of SS retirement benefits for unemployed workers who are not willing to retire, but need a new source of income while they continue looking for a job.

The purpose of this paper is to review the results of studies that investigate the most important active labour market policy (ALMP) measures in Germany. A focus is also on programmes devoted to foster entrepreneurship which can make important contributions to a country’s growth and social welfare.

The study relies on quantitative and qualitative assessments and a comparison of results of previous studies on ALMPs.

The available evidence suggests that most ALMP measures increase labour market prospects of the participants. In particular, evaluations of the entrepreneurship promotion activities show high success rates as well as high cost efficiency. The bulk share of participants of entrepreneurship measures is still self-employed after several years and nearly one-third of these businesses had at least one employee. The authors mention problems regarding the evaluation of previous programmes and highlight future challenges of German ALMP.

This is the first study on ALMP that has an extensive and explicit focus on entrepreneurship-promoting programs.

Summary results of a survey of unemployed men conducted in Lancaster and Morecambe in 1988 are presented. Particular attention is focused on the long‐term unemployed, and on detailed aspects of skills, qualifications and work experience of the stock of unemployed workers.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss and seek a better understanding of the stigmatization of unemployed workers who have been laid off.

This is a conceptual paper which addresses the factors that affect stigmatization and resulting discrimination against laid‐off individuals such as minority status, age, labor markets, job level, and length of unemployment. Issues of categorization and stereotyping of laid‐off workers are explored.

The increased use of layoffs by organizations has created a large class of unemployed workers who, rather than being seen as victims, are perceived to be deficient in their skills and abilities. This stigmatization is seen as more detrimental to laid‐off minorities and older workers as well as those who have been unemployed for long periods of time. The amount of discrimination is likely to be affected by the job market and level of job.

Propositions are developed to examine the factors affecting the stigma as well as moderators affecting the relationship between the unemployment stigma and discrimination.

Organizations should examine their HR policies and practices regarding the unemployed seeking jobs. Discrimination against the unemployed may result in long‐term unemployment that may have enormous human costs.

This paper highlights the ways in which being laid off now stigmatizes an individual and may significantly limit his/her ability to secure future employment. Since there are no legal restrictions on discriminating against the unemployed, organizations may systematically screen out applicants who are not currently employed.

Should the unemployed be viewed as an underclass at the bottom of the stratification heap in modern societies? In the 1930s, the answer given by social scientists was unambiguously negative. The unemployed could not be considered as a social class; they were “a mass numerically not socially” who showed no group or class consciousness (Zawadsky and Lazarsfeld, 1935, p.2). The people who were unemployed at any one point in time, the argument ran, were a mixed collection of individuals who did not necessarily share a common view of society. The attitudes of the unemployed varied according to previous experience at work (Bakke, 1933) and individual and family financial situation (Jahoda, Lazarsfeld and Zeisel, 1932: 45). Similar arguments have been presented more recently: the responses of the unemployed to their condition depend critically on their previous political socialisation, for example, argues Bergere (1990).

The purpose of this paper is to examine coping strategies, social support, and psychological distress for comparable samples of unemployed (n=389) and re-employed (n=270) individuals. The authors hypothesized that problem-focused coping and higher levels of social support would be associated with lower levels of psychological distress for unemployed vs re-employed participants.

The cross-sectional design and the convenience sampling method were used in the study.

Although unemployed participants reported poorer coping, higher levels of psychological distress, and lower levels of social support compared to re-employed participants; social support and coping strategies predicted psychological distress. Multiple regression analyses suggest that emotion-focused coping strategies were related to higher levels of psychological distress, whereas social support and problem-focused coping strategies were related to lower levels of psychological distress. Social support accounted for more variance in participants’ psychological distress above and beyond all other variables. Single and unemployed participants of the study used less problem-focused, more emotion-focused coping, and perceived lower social support than married unemployed. Gender and marital status of the unemployed were also significantly associated with psychological distress. In addition, older and less educated unemployed participants perceived less social support and used emotion-focused coping more frequently.

The findings indicated that being female, single, older, and low educated are the potential sociodemographic risk factors for the psychosocial well-being of unemployed people.

The favourable effects of certain coping strategies suggest the potential benefits of interventions to reduce reliance on emotion-focused coping and stimulate more problem-focused strategies in order to enhance psychological well-being.