"Bowling Alone Because the Team Got Downsized"

According to this research, a spell of unemployment makes a worker less likely to engage in social activities. The cross-sectional results - examining how the degree of social involvement varies with the number of unemployment spells across workers at a point in time - raise questions of causality (does some third variable make worker less socially engaged and more likely to get fired), but the time-series component of the panel where individual workers are traced over time and they tend to be less socially involved after being fired than before, an effect that persists for the rest of their lives, is more convincing:

Bowling alone because the team got downsized, EurekAlert: The pain of downsizing extends far beyond laid off workers and the people who depend on their paychecks, according to a new ... study

Even a single involuntary displacement has a lasting impact on a worker's inclination to volunteer and participate in a whole range of social and community groups and organizations...

"What we find is that even just one disruption in employment makes workers significantly less likely to participate in a whole range of social activities — from joining book clubs to participating in the PTA and supporting charities," said Jennie E. Brand, a UCLA sociologist and the study's lead author. "After being laid off or downsized, workers are less likely to give back to their community."

The ... research found that workers who had experienced just one involuntary disruption in their employment status were 35% less likely to be involved in their communities than their counterparts who had never experienced a job loss due to layoff, downsizing or restructuring, or a business closing or relocating. Moreover, the exodus from community involvement continued ... for the rest of the workers' lives.

"Social engagement often involves an element of social trust and a sense that things are reciprocal — that you give some support if you get some support, and you benefit from society if society benefits from you," said Brand, an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA. "When workers are displaced, the tendency is to feel as though the social contract has been violated, and we found that they are less likely to reciprocate." ...

For workers who were displaced during their peak earning years — between 35 and 53 years of age — the effects were the strongest. ...

Affiliation with political groups ... showed no statistically significant downturn over time, possibly because the experience of being displaced impressed some workers with the need for political action. ...

The latest findings have considerable ramifications, she contended. "Whether citizens participate is important for the effective functioning of neighborhoods, schools, communities and democracies," Brand said.

Moreover, withdrawing could prolong unemployment by limiting a displaced worker's exposure to contacts that could possibly lead to a new job.

"If workers withdraw socially after being laid off, then they're experiencing double-jeopardy," Brand said. "They're losing their jobs, and then they're not participating in society, so they're not keeping up with social contacts that might help them find a new job." ... "Everybody loses when people withdraw from society," Brand said.

Comments

[Downsized]

As one of the people who got downsized, let me tell you from first hand experience that inflation has been a far larger problem for me than the dissolution of the company bowling team. Rising prices are a nightmare for someone who is out of work.

[anne]

"After being laid off or downsized, workers are less likely to give back to their community."

[Duh.]

[ken melvin]

'Twas fact before the research and 'twill be long after.

[robertdfeinman]

I've claimed for a long time (based upon some personal observation) that people never really recover from any sort of sharp lifestyle event. They learn to adjust, but they can never be the same as before.

I think the depression had this effect on a whole generation and their offspring. Certainly my parents were economically cautious having been young adults during the depression and I adopted their same attitudes towards money. My adult kids are not nearly as cautious.

At the place where I worked for 25 years, a change in top brass and a few abrupt firings of long-time employees (in the early 1990's) cast a pall over the place and the attitudes of every else towards the place changed. The implicit contract of treating workers with respect and getting dedication and hard work in return was broken - permanently.

I think we will be seeing the effects of the trauma of our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for a long time as well. Just being there on an ambiguous mission causes the trauma, one doesn't have to suffer actual injury.

I've also claimed that the core group of pols running the country suffered such a trauma on 9/11, that is Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and the rest of the second tier neo-cons. They were scared witless and have over reacted and misunderstood world conditions as a result ever since.

Their paranoia seems to have permanently affect about 20% of the population as well. One has only to look at the sharp difference in attitudes between staunch GOP followers and others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/us/politics/01poll.html

[Peter]

Guys/Gals,

get with the program. Workers are being "upsized" when
the corporation is being "downsized."

[donna]

The "you're on your own" messages of our society have been going on now for far, far too long.

Not to mention that when you're laid off, your full-time job becomes looking for a new job. It's just when you should be socializing, using every connection you can, yet people are depressed and insecure about themselves and don't want to socialize. We need to be more accepting of the transient nature of our current workplace and encourage those affected to be social. Perhaps reaching out and supporting those who are in hard times is the most important act of volunteerism we can all do these days.

[cm]

donna: That may work (to an extent) for "commodity" occupations, but outside that, the problem is "we cannot find local talent". If you are recommending "local talent" to the respective employers, it may happen that they "cannot find" it. (If you get my drift.)

[reason]

People who are looking for work, do not know how thin they have stretch their finances. So they cut back on all costs and community activities are an optional cost. So Donna, unless you are offering subsidy, good intentions won't help much.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Donna says: "We need to be more accepting of the transient nature of our current workplace and encourage those affected to be social." I think this is very true. Part of it can be laid at the feet of Joseph Campbell, and his babble about how a job should be a passion. Now, you either look for a job you are "passionate" about, or a commodity job. Unfortunately, there are very few jobs any of us can get passionate about. Mostly, it is about paying the bills. Two kinds of jobs out there, the type where they don't care about your skills, only your "passion" for whatever, or the commodity skills jobs, that too many people are competing for.

I went to a job seminar awhile back, and the a_ _ H _ _ _ who ran it was just promoting his book. He basically stated that he did not want to hear that you needed the job, because your rent was due, because that would indicate you were only looking for the job for money, and would leave for something better paid. His humor consisted of a pic of someone snow blowing, and he said that was all the resumes he was dealing with. You basically have to have a rewritten resume to "fit" you to any job you apply for.

Maybe not every job needs a resume. I went into one staffing place (non-it) and they asked if I was there for accounting, which was not so. Basically, they collect your resume, then herd you into a room for (commodity) "skills" testing. They never bothered to read my resume, and they didn't care either. My experience on my current job was less then useless to them anyway.

OTH, there are permatemps everywhere. A good way to avoid providing benefits, and much of the money goes to the staffing middlepeople. Employers are relieved of all the burdens of having employees. They just magically show up, do the work, and the company pays the staffing company. Workers ought to complain about "sharing" half their wages with these parasites.

[Patricia Shannon]

reason says...

People who are looking for work, do not know how thin they have stretch their finances. So they cut back on all costs and community activities are an optional cost.

True.
Also, when you're out of work, you get put down a lot and treated with disdain, which sours ones view of others permanently. I got "Who moved my cheese" quoted at me when I couldn't find a decent job when I was in my late 50's. What is amusing is that those who have this attitude towards others who are out of work, react poorly when they themselves get the ax, which makes sense. If you think only losers lose their jobs, what does it mean when you yourself lose your job? One thing it means, is no sympathy from me!

[Hexagonal]

Interesting. I'd like to see the results confirmed by other studies.

Certainly plausible, and yet -- are we really so fragile? I'd like to think not.

I remember reading that shame has been shown to have an evolutionary purpose. Yes, the research into the evolution of emotions sometimes can sound like How the Leopard Got Its Spots and other Just So stories. But perhaps the less-engaged-after-being-fired subjects of this study are unknowingly embodying the echos of a human shame response that had been put in place over our evolutionary history.