Men worst victims of economic slowdown

Cambridge, March 7: The economic slowdown is taking a major toll on men as compared to their female counterparts, as they live through job insecurity with each passing day, says a recent study.

According to Cambridge University researchers, the fear of losing the status of the earning member in the family is leaving them worried and miserable, though they are trying to brave the situation.

Brendan Burchell, study member and sociologist from Cambridge University, said: "Men, unlike women, have few positive ways of defining themselves out of the workplace between when they leave school and when they retire."

"Despite several decades of more equal employment opportunities for men and women, men retain traditional beliefs that their masculinity is threatened if their employment is threatened," he added.

However, in a survey conducted earlier this year, large number of women admitted to be living in the fear of losing jobs, this study revealed that more men are experiencing anxiety and depressiondefine in the present situation, but tend to conceal their concerns.

Men with risky jobs tend to be more dismayed than others who have been made 'redundant' in the global recession times.

The research suggests that the stress and anxiety factor of going jobless just "bottomed out" as people adjusted to the recent situation after some six months. But employed people worrying constantly about becoming unemployed had a deteriorating mental well-being factor till two years.

British Household Panel Survey, which is funded by ESRC, is collecting statistics from people to assess the effects of economic crunch. At present, Dr Burchell is involved with analyzing the findings pertaining to almost 300 U.K. employees.

Standard clinical measures, known as the "GHQ 12", are implemented in both the surveys to evaluate the signs of anxiety and stress in men. The data analysis facilitated Dr Burchell to establish a link between job insecurity and changes in psychological welfare in his first-of-the-kind study.

"Given that most economic forecasts predict the recession will be long, the results mean that men in particular could be entering a period of prolonged and growing misery," quoted Dr Burchell.