Articles
Loneliness leads to higher risk of future unemployment - Apr 2022.
Experiencing loneliness appears to lead to a higher risk of future unemployment, according to new research.
Previous research has established that being unemployed can cause loneliness, however the new study from the University of Exeter is the first to directly explore whether the opposite also applies across the working age population. Published in BMC Public Health, the study found that people who reported “feeling lonely often” were significantly more likely to encounter unemployment later. Their analysis also confirmed previous findings that the reverse is true – people who were unemployed were more likely to experience loneliness later.
Lead author Nia Morrish, of the University of Exeter, said: “Given the persisting and potentially scarring effects of both loneliness and unemployment on health and the economy, prevention of both experiences is key. Decreased loneliness could mitigate unemployment, and employment abate loneliness, which may in turn relate positively to other factors including health and quality of life. Thus, particular attention should be paid to loneliness with additional support from employers and government to improve health and wellbeing. Our research was largely conducted pre-pandemic, however we suspect this issue may be even more pressing, with more people working from home and potentially experiencing isolation because of anxieties around covid.”
Senior author Professor Antonieta Medina-Lara said: “Loneliness is an incredibly important societal problem, which is often thought about in terms of the impact on mental health and wellbeing only. Our findings indicate that there may also be wider implications, which could have negative impacts for individuals and the economy. We need to explore this further, and it could lay the foundations for employers or policy makers to tackle loneliness with a view to keeping more people in work.”
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University of Exeter Medical School News
Date: 31 March 2020