Could early retirement be even better for the long-term unemployed than marriage?
A new study by a team of German economists tests a theory that suggests so. The thery posits that we all have a "identity utility," and thus the unhappiness we feel due to unemployment — which in countries like Germany and even the US probably doesn't mean hunger or great deprivation — comes from the sense that we are abnormal, that we have failed, because we aren't doing our jobs.
…unemployment makes those people who consider themselves part of a social category “able-to-work members of society”, but who are no longer able to meet one of the most important norms of that group (ie being employed), unhappy.
To confirm this interpretation and to isolate this cause for the unhappiness of the long-term unemployed from other causes, we focus on a very special event in the life of the long-term unemployed – retirement (Hetschko et al 2011). Entering retirement brings about a change in the social category, but does not change anything else in the lives of the long-term unemployed. When a long-term unemployed person retires, she is still out of work, but she no longer identifies herself with the social category of those “able to work”, but rather with that of the retired. Retirees are no longer subjected to the social norm of having to be employed, thus evoking an increase in the identity utility and the wellbeing of the long-term unemployed.
Could retirement really make that big a difference? Yes. According to this graph, life satisfaction jumps by an average of .3 on a scale of 1-10, after retirement among the long-term unemployed, and among men who have been unemployed for a long time, by .7 or even more.
That's a greater life satisfaction increase than marriage, which comes in at a mere .2. [Of course, this is in Germany, where secure retirements are the social norm.]
Via Suzy Khimm.
Kit Stolz 