It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laidoff   coworkers out for a drink for comfort. But which side deserves sympathy more, the jobless or the still employed? On March 6, researchers at a conference at the University of Cambridge heard data suggesting it's the latter. Brendan Burchell, a Cambridge sociologist, presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their jobs show similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. Although a newly jobless person's mental health may "bottom out" after about six months, and then even begin to improve,the mental state of people who are continuously worried about losing their job "just continues to get worse and worse," Burchell says. Evolutionary psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stress during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but invisible threat. Patients have been known to experience higher levels of anxiety, for example, while waiting for examination results than knowing what they are suffering from -- even if the result is cancer. It's better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than wait with anxiety. When the uncertainty continues, people stay in a nonstop "fight or flight" response, which leads to damaging stress. But not every employee in insecure industries has such a discouraging view, Burchell says. In general, women get on better. While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women scored lower in stress on the GHQ 12, even when they had a job they felt insecure about losing. As Burchell explains, "For women, most studies show that any job -- it doesn't matter whether it is secure or insecure -- gives psychological improvement over unemployment." Burchell supposes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinner, and that more of a man's selfworth depends on his job. What could be the best title for the text?
Is It Less Stressful to Get Laid Off Than Stay On? Should Greater Sympathy Be Given to the Jobless? Do Employees Bear More Stress Than Ever Before? Do Men or Women Show Higher Levels of Anxiety?