Parental unemployment causes depression and anxiety in children, study finds

A study reveals that job insecurity also has negative effects on children.

Job insecurity in Spain is worrisome, 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 the welfare of people and their emotional balance.

A study by the American Psychological Association (APA), conducted 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.

However, it is not only unemployed people who suffer from this dramatic situation, but also the unemployed. scientific evidence suggests that the children of unemployed parents are also at increased risk for mental health problems.. In this article we explain it to you.

Psychological problems associated with unemployment

Work and well-being are closely linked, because 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 the minimum guarantees and dignity, and feeling financially secure also has a great effect on our self-esteem and emotional balance.

Losing our job is a delicate situation, because it destabilizes us and forces us to look for a job; however, being unemployed for a long period of time causes serious problems in our life and that of our family and the consequences can be dramatic.

At the psychosocial level, the individual may suffer from what is known as invisibility syndromeThe individual feels maladjusted in the socioeconomic system and may believe that others do not see him or her, that he or she does not contribute what he or she should contribute to society. The individual perceives that he/she is not part of the social system and that it rejects him/her. A thought that, in many cases, may be objective.

Unemployment and its relation to anxiety, depression and suicide

Likewise, the individual feels confused and lost, even experiencing learned helplessness, and does not find the meaning of his life. Not only does he loses his professional identity, but his identity in general, since work is an important factor in a person's stability and self-esteem. This causes an existential crisis, and the person does not know the path to follow, gets stuck, and this can become a vicious circle that gradually undermines their morale and affects their self-esteem in a negative way.

In the long run, his self-confidence is also affected because he feels that he is not capable of working, and he may come to believe that he is not capable of working.In the long run, his self-confidence is also affected because he feels that he is not capable of working, and he may come to believe that this is the reason why he is not being hired (even in situations of structural unemployment). In fact, the feeling of guilt can invade you regardless of the causes of the unemployment situation.

The anxiety of the first months of unemployment can lead to depression after several months of frustration in the job search. Scientific studies claim 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 conducted in 54 countries, concludes that the suicide rate rose by 3.3% in the year following the banking crash of 2008. There seem to be gender differences in this context, as the vast majority of suicides were men, as explained by another research published by BMJ.

Children also suffer from their parents' unemployment situation

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 conducted by researchers at Ohio State University.

Children are also victims of the fact that parents do not work.. Economic problems, divorce and many other family difficulties derived from this problem affect them directly. According to research by 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 which was carried out over three years in Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Sweden. The findings were published in the scientific journal European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

As reported by ABC, the results also identified four risk factors, i.e., family situations that increase the probability of suffering psychological problems:

• Families with a poor social support network.
• Immigrant families
• Non-traditional" families (in which the children did not live with either of the two parents).
• Unemployed parents

The first three types of families can cause children to develop psychosocial pathologies such as stress, depression or anxiety with a 30% higher probability. However, there is a 56% probability that children will develop psychological and/or emotional problems if the parents are unemployed..

Don't have a job? What 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 become demoralizing for an individual. That is why we have prepared an article for you to benefit from the advice provided by different professionals.

• If you are unemployed and want to find a job, we invite you to read our article: "I don't have a job: 7 tips from experts to find it".