The role of social integration in the adverse effect of unemployment on mental health - Testing the causal pathway and buffering hypotheses using panel data

Social environment, health cognition, and health behavior: how individuals with non-fixed employment end up with adverse health outcomes in China under the era of VUCA?-findings from PLS-SEM and fsQCA

Objectives

This article studied the single-factor causal relationships between the social environment, health cognition, and health behavior of the individuals with non-fixed employment and their adverse health outcomes, as well as the complex causal relationships of multiple factors on these outcomes.

Methods

Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) are employed. Data is collected from the results of an open questionnaire Psychology and Behavior Investigation of Chinese Residents 2021.

Results

PLS-SEM analysis reveals that health risk behaviors and cognition play a mediating role in impact of the social environment on adverse health outcomes, indicating that individuals with non-fixed employment susceptible to adverse health outcomes. fsQCA analysis identifies that weak social support is a core condition leading to outcomes of depression and anxiety. There are shared configurations and causal pathways between the outcomes of physical health and depression.

Conclusion

The study supports the social determinants theory of health and suggests that the fundamental reason for people being trapped in adverse health outcomes is the health inequality caused by social stratification, and the external shock of uncertainty in the era of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity).

Partner's unemployment and subjective well-being: The mediating role of relationship functioning

Unemployment affects not only the subjective well-being of the individual, but also that of the partner. Based on the life course perspective and the spillover-crossover-model, we examine the mediating role of relationship functioning for such crossover effects of partner's unemployment on subjective well-being. We also test whether gender differences in the mechanism of relationship functioning can explain the larger overall crossover effects on women compared to men. We use data from the German Family Panel pairfam (2008/09-2018/19), which provide more direct and comprehensive measures of relationship functioning than previous research, and allow us to examine couples' communication and interactions, their conflict styles and behaviors, relationship satisfaction, and perceived relationship instability as mediators. To analyze the impact of the partner's transition to unemployment on subjective well-being, we use fixed effects panel regression models and the product method of mediation analysis to estimate the indirect effects of relationship functioning. The results show that a partner's transition to unemployment has a negative impact on one's own well-being. The effects are more pronounced for women than men which can be partly explained by gender-specific effects of the partner's unemployment on various aspects of relationship functioning, rather than by differential effects of the latter on one's own well-being.