The social stigma of unemployment: consequences of stigma consciousness on job search attitudes, behaviour and success

Gerhard Krug (), Katrin Drasch () and Monika Jungbauer-Gans ()
Additional contact information
Gerhard Krug: Institute for Employment Research (IAB)
Katrin Drasch: Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)
Monika Jungbauer-Gans: German Centre of Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW)

Journal for Labour Market Research, 2019, vol. 53, issue 1, 1-27

Abstract: Abstract Studies show that the unemployed face serious disadvantages in the labour market and that the social stigma of unemployment is one explanation. In this paper, we focus on the unemployed’s expectations of being stigmatized (stigma consciousness) and the consequences of such negative expectations on job search attitudes and behaviour. Using data from the panel study “Labour Market and Social Security” (PASS), we find that the unemployed with high stigma consciousness suffer from reduced well-being and health. Regarding job search, the stigmatized unemployed are more likely to expect that their chances of re-employment are low, but in contrast, they are more likely to place a high value on becoming re-employed. Instead of becoming discouraged and passive, we find that stigmatized unemployed individuals increase their job search effort compared to other unemployed individuals. However, despite their higher job search effort, the stigma-conscious unemployed do not have better re-employment chances.

Keywords: Unemployment; Social stigma; Stigma consciousness; Job search; Expectancy-value theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 J68 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1186/s12651-019-0261-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jlabrs:v:53:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1186_s12651-019-0261-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/12651

DOI: 10.1186/s12651-019-0261-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal for Labour Market Research is currently edited by Joachim Möller

More articles in Journal for Labour Market Research from Springer, Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().