Unemployed as satisfied with life as they were before losing their jobs

There8217;s a real concern that this will have long-term implications on the mental well-being of a large portion of the work force. But this analysis suggests that people are able to cope with a job loss relatively well over time,8221; said the study8217;s lead author,Isaac Galatzer-Levy at New York University School of Medicine.

Galatzer-Levy and his colleagues analyzed results of the German Socioeconomic Panel Data study. This is a nationally representative survey of German households conducted yearly from 1984 to 2003.

For this analysis,the researchers used data from 774 participants who had all lost their jobs at some point during the study. Included in this analysis were the participants8217; own reports of well-being in the three years before they lost their jobs until four years after the job loss.

The researchers divided the participants into four groups based on their life satisfaction reports. The largest group reported a relatively high and stable level of life satisfaction before losing their jobs.

These people were more likely to be negatively affected at the time they lost their jobs but a year later,their average life satisfaction had returned to its pre-unemployment level. The researchers also observed that people in this group were no more or less likely to regain employment by the end of the study.

For the second largest group,15 percent of respondents,their well-being was gradually improving before losing their jobs and then leveled off in the four years following their unemployment.

Another group reported relatively low levels of life satisfaction before job loss,and their levels stayed more or less the same throughout the time of the researchers8217; analysis.

Well-being levels among the smallest group 4 percent were already declining in the years leading up to unemployment and continued to decline after job loss until it began to go back up in the third year.

But these people never fully returned to pre-unemployment levels,according to the findings. This last group was also the least likely to be re-employed in the years after they lost their jobs.

Their findings are published in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience,Psychology and Economics.