Some psychological consequences of unemployment of young graduates

Abstract

On the sample of 97 young people with a college diploma the author undertook to determine the psychological consequences of being unemployed. The author investigated the relationship between the length of unemployment and the attribution of the causes of unemployment with the anxiety of the examinees. The hypotheses that young people externalize the causes their unemployment during a prolonged period of unemployment and that the psychological consequences of unemployment show less among those with a higher education than among those without it, are also reviewed. The results show that those unemployed for more than 24 months are less cognitively anxious than those who have been unemployed a shorter period of time, which is accounted for by a high level of extemalization of the causes of unemployment. Cognitive anxiety is lower amongst those without financial difficulties. Generally speaking, the results indicate that those unemployed who have a higher education have less psychologically injurious consequences due to unemployment than those unemployed with a lower education. Finally, the results of the entire inquiry are summarized and the author proposes a theoretical model for stress due to unemployment.