Today I want to talk about personal identity and unemployment.
Perth, Western Australia, post resources boom. Increasing rates of unemployment and under-employment are a sign of the times. Why? Expansion projects have been completed, reductions in the labour intensiveness of production, commodity price drops due to reduced demand, and a number other factors that don’t feature as prominently as others. There are many implications associated with the ensuing unemployment and underemployment. But one that of these implications that hits people on an individual level, is the loss of identity that we can feel as a result of losing a job.
This happens because we all have multiple identities that make up our perception of ourselves and the perception that we believe others hold of us. The two most important in this regard are our personal identity and our social identity.
Our personal identity may be determined by the satisfaction that we derive from our own achievements and the enjoyment that we get from our accomplishments. Social identity may be determined by the satisfaction that we get from our social persona and the importance that we attribute to in-group membership that we achieve in the eyes of a given social group.
This is where work falls in. We develop social identities that link with the work that we do. These can be very specific and the rules for social acceptance can be very technically related to the work that we do. That being said, there is a broader social group that most of us belong to, which is the social group of the employed.
Now most of us do not view ourselves specifically as “employed” in an in-group/out-group dichotomy on a regular basis. But, when you find yourself without a job, you start to feel, or simply perceive an implicit stigma associated with this state.
That is, most of us hold stereotypes about the unemployed. These stereotypes tell us that they are lazy, stupid, unreliable and typically have bad attitudes. This of course , like most stereotypes is inaccurate and like always, the truth resists simplification. So what this signifies to us, is a loss in social standing. Something that we all strive to avoid to one degree or another.
So the reality of things becomes irrelevant and the only thing that really matters is how we perceive the situation that we are in. This is where we begin with negative rumination, the lowered self-esteem and the depression.
That’s the bad news. The loss of identity and social standing can have a tremendous impact on our psychological health and it is important to understand that the pain is real and needs to be dealt with.
The good news is that its relatively easy to do this. First of all, keep yourself moving physically. Run, walk, skip, anything, just move. Secondly, constantly look for a job. This will provide a purpose and will ultimately yield results and has the added benefit of being a critical element that most of us need - that is, it is the problem solving element to the situation. Thirdly, keep yourself busy with things that grow your personal identity and create in-roads to becoming a part of new social groups. Maybe you enjoy building computers as a hobby. Do that, be proud of what you achieve. Consume yourself with projects that use up time and stimulate your mental faculties. You will find that time will fly and you will have a purpose. If you can make money from this, do that too.
Engage other people in those communities; make yourself part of another social group. Understand that there is value in work and not all work needs to be paid in order to have value.
Unemployment and underemployment can have serious psychological consequences. But like most things to do with our own psyche, it appears that the emotional outcomes can be mostly within our control, depending on how we look at our situation.
There is a tremendous amount that people have achieved, when the decision to change careers was made for them. This thought is the start to seeing how an apparent loss can actually be a very real opportunity.
Thank you very much for reading, I will catch you again soon.
-Rod Peredo - SOCM Services
Watch the video to this post at: https://youtu.be/tuDLViOcqLA
