Productivity of the employed may be adversely affected by stress of an unemployed spouse’s job search

Maw-Der Foo, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, has published a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology that assesses the effect of an unemployed spouse's job search on the productivity and health of the employed partner.

The stress of the unemployed spouse was found to adversely affect the overall health of the relationship, reported Foo, along with lead author Zhaoli Song.

Foo noted that one of their key findings was that "couples are better at sharing their burden than helping alleviate it. If you feel bad at home there is going to be spillover at work where you will also feel lousy."

The researchers predicted that the support married couples give one another would "help alleviate the stress of unemployment on the family unit, but it didn't turn out to be the case."

Workplaces, they suggested, may need to be increasingly sensitive to employees who have family members or spouses who are unemployed. As couples counseling may be severed in upcoming company budget cuts, the emphasis on family support and family-friendly policies becomes imperative.

Students who are pursuing a Masters in Social Work and who are interested in family counseling work may heed these results.  

POSTED BY: ec_admin - February 24th, 2011 at 03:51pm ( 0 )