Unemployment of parents causes depression and anxiety in children, according to study

April 1, 2024

Job insecurity in Spain is worrisome, and the high unemployment rate is a reality that affects many families . This situation creates serious problems at the social and economic level and, therefore, also affects the well-being of people and their emotional balance.

A study by the American Psychological Association (APA), conducted by Paul and Moser in 2009, showed that unemployed people are twice as likely to suffer psychological problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosomatic symptoms, low psychological well-being and poor self esteem.

However, not only unemployed people suffer this dramatic situation, but also Scientific evidence suggests that children of unemployed parents are also at greater risk of mental health problems . In this article we explain it to you.

Psychological problems associated with unemployment

Work and wellbeing are intimately linked, because our employment, if we feel fulfilled in it, can be a very important aspect of our happiness. Having work is necessary to be able to live with the minimum guarantees and with dignity, and feeling economically calm also has a great effect on our self-esteem and our emotional balance.

Losing work is a delicate situation, because it destabilizes us and forces us to seek employment; However, being unemployed for a long period of time causes serious problems in our life and that of our family and the consequences can be dramatic.

At psychosocial level, the person can suffer what is known as invisibility syndrome , since the individual feels unadapted in the socioeconomic system and may have the belief that others do not see it, that it does not contribute what it should contribute to society. The individual perceives that he is not part of the social system and that he rejects it. A thought that, in many cases, can be objective.

Unemployment and its relationship with anxiety, depression and suicide

Likewise, the individual feels confused and lost, coming to experience learned helplessness, and does not find meaning in his life. Not only does he lose his professional identity, but his identity in general since work is an important factor in a person's stability and self-esteem. This causes an existential crisis, and the person does not know the way to follow, stagnates, and this can turn into a vicious circle that little by little is undermining their morals and affecting their self-esteem in a negative way.

In the long run, his self-confidence is also affected because he feels that he is not qualified to work , and may come to believe that this is the reason why they do not hire him (even in situations of structural unemployment). In fact, the feeling of guilt can invade you regardless of the causes of the unemployment situation.

The anxiety of the first months of unemployment can lead to a situation of depression after several months of frustration in the search for work. Scientific studies affirm that there is a correlation between the increase in the suicide rate and the high levels of unemployment, and a research carried out in 2009, which was carried out in 54 countries, concludes that the suicide rate grew by 3.3% the year after the banking crash of 2008. There seem to be gender differences in this context, since the great majority of the suicides were men, as explained by other research published by BMJ.

Children also suffer from the situation of parental unemployment

The consequences of unemployment not only affect the person who is in this situation, but the family environment also lives this dramatic scenario in the flesh. In many cases, divorces are a consequence of this fact, and men would be the most affected, according to a study by Ohio State University researchers.

Children are also victims of the fact that parents do not work . The economic problems, the divorce and many other family difficulties derived from this problem affect them directly. According to an investigation by the University of Zaragoza, the children of unemployed fathers and mothers are more prone to suffer depression, specifically have a 56% chance of developing disorders such as anxiety or depression.

These conclusions are the result of a study involving 6,000 European children aged between 2 and 9 years, and was carried out for three years in Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Sweden. These conclusions were published in the scientific journal European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

As reported by the newspaper ABC, the results also allowed identifying four risk factors, that is, family situations that increase the chances of suffering psychological problems:

Families with a scarce support social network
Immigrant families
"Non-traditional" families (in which the children did not live with one of the two parents)
Parents in unemployment situation

The first three types of family can cause children to develop pathologies of a psychosocial type such as stress, depression or anxiety with 30% more likely. However, there is a 56% chance that children will develop psychological and / or emotional problems if the parents are unemployed .

You do not have a job? What to do…

Since the unemployment rate in Spain is around 20%, many families suffer the consequences of unemployment. Looking for work is an arduous situation that can demoralize an individual. That is why we have prepared an article so that you can benefit from the advice given by different professionals.