Elsevier

Journal of Vocational Behavior

Volume 93, April 2016, Pages 103-119
Journal of Vocational Behavior

Maintaining perceived control with unemployment facilitates future adjustment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2016.01.006Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examine antecedents and outcomes of perceived by focusing on unemployment.

  • Women and those with fewer years of education showed greater declines in control.

  • Perceived control was associated with becoming re-employed following unemployment.

  • Maintenance of perceived control predicted higher life satisfaction in the years to follow.

  • Findings show that perceived control facilitates adjustment to unemployment.

Abstract

Unemployment is a major challenge to individuals' development. An important personal resource to ameliorate the negative impact of unemployment may be perceived control, a general-purpose belief system. Little is known, however, about how perceived control itself changes with the experience of unemployment and what the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of such change in perceived control are in different ages. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (N = 413 who experienced unemployment and N = 413 case-matched controls; time period of data collection: 1994–1996) to examine whether perceived control changes with unemployment, explore the role of socio-demographic, psychosocial and health factors in moderating such change, and investigate whether levels of perceived control prior to unemployment and unemployment-related change in perceived control predict unemployment-related outcomes up to five years following. Results indicated that, on average, perceived control remained relatively stable with unemployment, and that younger and older workers did not differ in this regard. However, there were sizeable individual differences in change in perceived control, with women and those with fewer years of education experiencing greater unemployment-related declines in perceived control. Lower levels of perceived control prior to unemployment and steeper unemployment-related decrements in perceived control were each associated with a higher risk of remaining unemployed in the 12 months immediately following unemployment. Steeper unemployment-related declines in perceived control also predicted lower life satisfaction up to five years following. We discuss possible pathways by which perceived control may facilitate adjustment to unemployment, consider the role of perceived control for better understanding the dynamics of unemployment, and suggest routes for further more process-oriented inquiry.

Section snippets

Perceived control (change) as an outcome of unemployment

Perceived control, as a psychological construct, has a long history (for discussion, see Skinner, 1995) and refers to an individual's belief about his or her capability to exert influence over and shape his or her life circumstances (Pearlin and Schooler, 1978, Skinner, 1995). It is a widely used construct across behavioral and social science disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and economics. Higher levels of perceived control and more positive rates of change over time have been

Moderators of unemployment-related change in perceived control

Personal and social factors are resources that individuals may draw upon to protect against potential declines in perceived control as a result of unemployment (Fugate et al., 2004, McKee-Ryan et al., 2005, Paul and Moser, 2009). Older persons may experience strong unemployment-related declines in perceived control due to the prospect of facing job discrimination or possessing outdated skills for future job prospects (Hanisch, 1999). Previous research suggests that women show increases in

Perceived control as a moderator of the link between unemployment and psychological adjustment

Unemployment is known to have long-term disruptive effects on several areas of life, including difficulties to attain re-employment, reduced income, impoverished well-being, and declines in health (Bartley, 1994, Diewald, 2007, Haushofer and Fehr, 2014, Nickell, 1997, Paul and Moser, 2009). However, not all individuals show similar declines as a function of unemployment, suggesting that while most succumb to its detrimental consequences, others are resilient and able to bounce from this

The present study

Our goal is to examine unemployment as an antecedent of perceived control, moderators of changes in perceived control and the role of perceived control in moderating adjustment following unemployment. In a first step, we hypothesize that perceived control, on average, declines with unemployment, but also that considerable between-person differences in change will be found. Second, we expect that participants with more years of education and those who report better health – due to their better

Method

We examined our research questions using data from SOEP. Comprehensive information about the design, participants, variables, and assessment procedures is reported in Wagner, Frick, and Schupp (2007). A brief overview of details relevant to the present analysis is given below.

Perceived control (change) as an outcome of unemployment

Table 2 shows results from our analyses examining unemployment-related change in perceived control. In Model 1, we observed that perceived control remained stable with unemployment (β0 =  0.02, p > .05) and that higher levels of perceived control prior to unemployment was associated with declines in perceived control with unemployment (β1 =  0.44, p < .05). For example, individuals with perceived control that was 1 unit higher than average in perceived control prior to unemployment (3.74) would be

Discussion

This report examined unemployment as an antecedent of between-person differences in changes in perceived control and the role of perceived control as a facilitator of adjustment to unemployment. On average, perceived control was relatively stable with unemployment, but there were sizeable between-person differences in change (see Fig. 1). Women and individuals with fewer years of education experienced stronger declines. Higher pre-unemployment levels of and stability in perceived control were

Conclusion

Our findings demonstrate that there are large between-person differences in how people's perceptions of control change across adulthood as a result of unemployment, a highly challenging life event like. However, perceived control is not only an outcome but also a major resource for rebounding after a control-threatening life event such as job loss. Individuals vary in their capacity to utilize this resource and as a consequence are more or less successful in finding new employment and also

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