Parental Unemployment Causes Depression And Anxiety In Children, According To Study
Job insecurity in Spain is worrying, and the high unemployment rate is a reality that affects many families This situation creates serious problems at the social and economic level and, therefore, also affects people’s well-being and their emotional balance.
A study by the American Psychological Association (APA), carried out by Paul and Moser in 2009, showed that unemployed people are twice as likely to suffer from psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, low psychological well-being and poor self-esteem.
Now, not only unemployed people suffer from this dramatic situation, but Scientific evidence suggests that children of unemployed parents also have a higher risk of suffering from mental health problems In this article we explain it to you.
Psychological problems associated with unemployment
Work and well-being are closely linked, since our job, if we feel fulfilled in it, can be a very important aspect of our happiness. Having a job is necessary to be able to live with minimum guarantees and with dignity, and feeling financially calm also has a great effect on our self-esteem and our emotional balance.
Losing your job is a delicate situation, because it destabilizes us and forces us to look for work; However, being unemployed for a long period of time causes serious problems in our lives and that of our family and the consequences can be dramatic.
At a psychosocial level, the person may suffer from what is known as invisibility syndrome, since the individual feels inadequate in the socioeconomic system and may have the belief that others do not see him, that he does not contribute what he should contribute to society. The individual perceives that he is not part of the social system and that it rejects him. A thought that, in many cases, can be objective.
Unemployment and its relationship with anxiety, depression and suicide
Likewise, the individual feels confused and lost, experiencing learned helplessness, and does not find meaning in his or her life. Not only does he lose his professional identity, but his identity in general since work is an important factor in a person’s stability and his self-esteem. This causes an existential crisis, and the person does not know the path they should follow, they stagnate, and this can become a vicious circle that little by little undermines their morale and affects their self-esteem in a negative way.
In the long run, Your self-confidence is also affected because you feel that you are not capable of working, and you may come to believe that this is the reason why you are not hired (even in situations of structural unemployment). In fact, the feeling of guilt can invade you regardless of the causes of your unemployment situation.
The anxiety of the first months of unemployment can lead to a situation of depression after several months of frustration in the job search. Scientific studies affirm that there is a correlation between the increase in the suicide rate and high levels of unemployment, and research carried out in 2009, which was carried out in 54 countries, concludes that the suicide rate grew by 3.3%. the year after the banking crash of 2008. There seem to be gender differences in this context, since the vast majority of suicides were men, as explained in another investigation published by BMJ.
Children also suffer from parental unemployment.
The consequences of unemployment not only affect the person who is in this situation, but the family environment also experiences this dramatic scenario firsthand. In many cases, divorces are a consequence of this fact, and men would be the most affected, according to a study carried out by researchers at Ohio State University.
Children are also victims of the fact that parents do not work Financial problems, divorce and many other family difficulties derived from this problem affect them directly. According to research from the University of Zaragoza, children of unemployed parents are more likely to suffer from depression, specifically they have a 56% chance of developing disorders such as anxiety or depression.
These conclusions are the result of a study in which 6,000 European children between the ages of 2 and 9 participated, and was carried out for three years in Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Sweden. These conclusions were published in the scientific journal European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
As reported by the newspaper ABC, the results also made it possible to identify four risk factors, that is, family situations that increase the likelihood of suffering psychological problems:
The first three types of family can cause children to develop psychosocial pathologies such as stress, depression or anxiety with a 30% greater probability. Nevertheless, There is a 56% probability that children will develop psychological and/or emotional problems if parents are unemployed
You do not have a job? To do…
Since the unemployment rate in Spain is around 20%, many families suffer the consequences of unemployment. Looking for a job is an arduous situation that can demoralize an individual. That is why we have prepared an article so that you can benefit from the advice provided by different professionals.
