Handbook on Unemployment and Society

Victor T. Chen, Sabina Pultz, Ofer Sharone (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

468 Seiten

2026
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-80088-682-7 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Januar 2026)
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The Handbook on Unemployment and Society explores how labor market institutions, policy regimes, and societal norms shape the experiences of unemployed people across various cultural contexts. It highlights how unemployment experiences are not usually driven by individual factors, but rather by broader structural forces.

Contributing authors demonstrate how the disconnection from secure and dignified employment can severely undermine well-being, challenge a person’s sense of purpose, and put strain on families and close relationships. Chapters examine the lived experience of job insecurity on an international scale, uncovering patterns and key institutional dynamics and investigating factors such as gender and race that continue to situate individuals in more or less advantaged positions when they confront the loss of their livelihoods. The Handbook provides suggestions for policies that could improve life for unemployed people, as well as outlining ways in which individuals and wider societies might approach this issue with greater understanding and compassion.

This interdisciplinary Handbook is a valuable resource for scholars and students in the fields of sociology, public policy, psychology, and economics. It is also greatly beneficial to those interested in understanding the social impacts of unemployment, such as policymakers and practitioners at support organizations.

Edited by Victor Tan Chen, Department of Sociology, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA, Sabina Pultz, Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, Denmark, and Ofer Sharone, Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

Contents
1 The experience of unemployment, in context 1
Victor Tan Chen, Sabina Pultz, and Ofer Sharone
PART I THE PERSONAL IMPACTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT
2 Job loss, job insecurity, and health 18
Sarah A. Burgard and Janet Wang
3 The psychological impact of unemployment: new perspectives and
intervention strategies 35
David L. Blustein, Camille Smith, Michael Gordon, Alekzander
Davila, and Whitney J. Erby
PART II UNEMPLOYMENT AS AN INSTITUTION
4 The governmentality of unemployment: transitional states of welfare 52
Tom Boland and Ray Griffin
5 The puzzling reconciliation of conditionality and personalized services
in employment services: how managers, frontline workers, and claimants
strive to solve a Gordian knot 68
Dorte Caswell, Flemming Larsen, and Mathias Herup Nielsen
6 What am I worth? An exploration of unemployed people’s experiences of
(in)dignity in Denmark 82
Sabina Pultz and Magnus Paulsen Hansen
7 The unemployment institution 101
Sarah Damaske
PART III SUBJECTIVITIES AND WORK INSECURITY
8 Flexible workers and other fantastical myths of the neoliberal era 122
Annette Nierobisz
9 Seeking shelter from the storm: perceived work insecurity in the United
States 137
Travis Scott Lowe
10 The present, past, and future of insecurity culture 152
Allison J. Pugh
PART IV UNEMPLOYMENT STIGMA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
11 Unemployment counseling: an identity-based perspective 163
Dawn R. Norris
12 Welfare stigma and the weaponization of shame 182
Michelle Peterie and Alex Broom
13 How gender shapes job loss and job searching 199
Aliya Hamid Rao
PART V PSYCHOLOGIZING UNEMPLOYMENT AND PROMOTING SELF-BLAME
14 The perversity of the unemployment narrative 211
Brian Halpin
15 Governing unemployment in China through the psychologization of the
heart 227
Jie Yang
16 A missed opportunity? A critical appraisal of Australia’s approach to
governing unemployment during the Covid-19 pandemic 245
Greg Marston and Rose-Marie Stambe
PART VI THE MANY FACES OF THE PRECARIOUS ECONOMY
17 Joblessness, economic dislocation, and civic withdrawal 261
Dingeman Wiertz and Chaeyoon Lim
18 Participation churn and bad(ish) jobs: challenges facing working-class men
in the rural US labor market 273
Robert D. Francis
19 The inherent link between privileged and precarious work in an uncertain
future 293
Nancy DiTomaso
20 From no jobs to bad jobs: research on employment precarity in Poland 311
Anna Kiersztyn
21 The making and enabling of a temporary workforce for the twenty-first
century 335
Jacqueline Olvera
22 Beyond ‘good’ and ‘bad’ jobs: a field theory of power at work 348
Victor Tan Chen and Erin Hatton
PART VII JOB SEARCHING AND HIRING PRACTICES
23 Job expectations theorized as feasible work 373
Didier Demazière
24 Navigating a highly competitive labor market: understanding job search
experiences of white-collar workers in South Korea 391
Gokce Basbug
25 What hiring rituals reveal about political economy 406
Ilana Gershon
PART VIII IMAGINING OTHER WORLDS OF WORK
26 Fugitive optimism: late liberalism’s traumatic temporality 421
Kathryn M. Dudley

Erscheint lt. Verlag	28.1.2026
Verlagsort	Cheltenham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	169 x 244 mm
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Mikrosoziologie
Themenwelt	Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre ► Makroökonomie
ISBN-10	1-80088-682-9 / 1800886829
ISBN-13	978-1-80088-682-7 / 9781800886827
Zustand	Neuware