Cross-over effects in couples
Voßemer and Baranowska-Rataj (2020) propose relationship quality and stability, reflected in couples’ communication and interaction, as integral explanations of the impact of unemployment on wellbeing in couples. The results confirm that the effects of a partner’s unemployment on wellbeing are channelled through changes in relationship functioning. Partner’s unemployment is more disadvantageous for women than for men, partly due to the gendered impact of the partner’s unemployment on the functioning of the relationship. For example, women whose partners become unemployed, report more negative patterns of communication and interaction, more destructive conflict styles and behaviours in case of disagreements, and increasing relationship instability. Men’s relationship quality and stability tends to be unaffected by their female partner’s unemployment.
Baranowska-Rataj and Vega (2020) focus on older couples, which can be viewed as particularly vulnerable. The lack of economic resources may further exacerbate the effects job losses among older couples because such economic shocks tend to have more significant financial consequences later in life. The study scrutinises the potential buffering effects of employment of the spouse, couples’ wealth and access to health insurance. The findings show that the negative effects of husbands’ job losses are stronger among women who do not have their own job and who live in less wealthy households. The effects are also larger among women without health insurance than for those who are uninsured. The consequences of wives’ job losses are either positive or neutral for men’s mental health, and there are no substantial differences in the magnitude of the effects across socioeconomic status.
Scheuring et al (2021) examine how the unemployment of a spouse compares to other precarious labour market statuses. Even though temporary jobs are regarded as offering less stability, employment of this kind has more positive effects on wellbeing of a spouse as compared to unemployment. This study also compares two different societal contexts: West and East Germany. As expected, in West Germany the gender gap in how partner’s unemployment affects well-being is much larger as compared to more gender-egalitarian, Eastern Germany.
Studies by Baranowska-Rataj and Strandh (2021 a, b) provide new evidence on how unemployment affects self-rated health in couples across countries with different levels of support from welfare state. The negative effects of a partner’s employment status on self-rated health are observed when the generosity of welfare state support is limited. In countries with higher gender equality, women are affected by their partner’s unemployment less than in conservative countries. This insight is followed up in (Baranowska-Rataj 2021), comparing depressive symptoms in different types of couples with children according to their constellations of employment status and across countries with diverging levels of childcare provision. Couples with both spouses employed report fewer depressive symptoms then couples where only a husband is employed, and these benefits are larger in countries where childcare services are easily available.
Intergenerational cross-over effects
Högberg et al (2021) examine how maternal and paternal unemployment affects birth outcomes, and find modest effects of maternal unemployment and no effects of paternal unemployment. The results also suggest that pre-existing social disadvantages among parents – low education, migration background, and dual parental unemployment – are not associated with more adverse intergenerational cross-over effects.
The study summarised above uses the data from Sweden, and therefore the results have to be interpreted in the context of relatively generous and egalitarian welfare states. This opens questions on how social policies moderate the intergenerational cross-over effects. To address these questions, systematic analyses including a large number of countries are needed. To fill this gap, Baranowska-Rataj et al (2021) investigate how parental unemployment is related to wellbeing of adolescents across Europe, and show how these effects are moderated by educational policies. The results indicate that both maternal and parental unemployment is related to reduced wellbeing among adolescents. However, receiving education-related allowances moderates the negative effect of paternal unemployment. In addition, the effects of parental unemployment are weaker in countries where financial aid for students has a broader coverage.
International comparisons are also the focus of the study by Johansson et al. (2019), who investigate the interplay between country-level and parental unemployment, showing that higher unemployment rates are related to lower adolescent wellbeing. This relationship is stronger among adolescents with unemployed fathers or in families where both parents were unemployed.
To sum up, HEALFAM provides new insights on cross-over effects of unemployment within families:
• It’s not just all about the money. The mechanisms of (gendered) cross-over effects within couples are related not only to decreases in shared income, but also due to deteriorating functioning of a relationship.
• Anticipated versus experienced insecurity. While temporary employment is seen as less secure, unemployment of a spouse is still worse for individual wellbeing.
• Economic resources as a buffer. Access to own economic resources decreases the magnitude of the cross-over effects of unemployment within families. This holds both for cross-over effects in couples and across generations, in families with adolescents.
• Policies as a collective resource. The protective effects of policies go beyond the individuals with unemployed family members who receive support at a specific time point.
• Need for policies that enhance agency and capabilities. As decreases in incomes are not the only and not even the main channel for cross-over effects of unemployment within families, policies need to address other channels: increase gender equality, reduce work-family conflict and reduce intergenerational independence by fostering equal chances for participation in education among adolescence.
