ABSTRACT
The effect of losing his job is like a bereavement to a man, and similarly it goes through predictable phases. The first is one of shock and disbelief, especially if the change was sudden. The second is an unrealistically optimistic stage. The man sees the loss as temporary, and anyway a welcome chance to relax and catch up with jobs around the home. After about three weeks this honeymoon phase fades, and he misses the security of a structured life, somewhere to go, and earning. Money may be limited. Every day is passed in meaningless leisure. Inertia creeps on, with waning of energy, interest and selfesteem. Attempts to find work are unexpectedly, then routinely, unavailing. Irritability develops and so do family tensions. Nearly 20 per cent of the wives of unemployed men suffer from anxiety or depression compared with 1.3 per cent of those whose husbands are in work (Penkower et al. 1988). Feelings of inferiority and helplessness lead into deep unhappiness or a clinical depression-in men out of work. Especially vulnerable are the young and the old, immigrants and the unskilled-even after planned retirement. An extrovert, optimistic personality ameliorates the adverse effects. Other types are liable to become chronically embittered, hopeless and anxious.
