Does financial hardship explain differences between Belgian and South African unemployed regarding experiences of unemployment, employment commitment, and job search behaviour?
Date
2013Author
Vleugels, Wouter
Rothmann, Sebastiaan
De Witte, Hans
Griep, Yannick
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Belgian and South African
unemployed differed regarding three psychological dimensions of unemployment:
affect (experiences of unemployment), attitudes (employment commitment),
and behaviour (job search intensity). Moreover, we expected country
of residence to indirectly influence unemployed people’s experiences,
employment commitment, and job search intensity via financial hardship. A
cross-sectional survey design was used to test our hypotheses. Data were sampled
from unemployed people in the Brussels area in Belgium (N = 305), and
the Potchefstroom area in South Africa (N = 381). The results indicated that,
compared to the Belgian unemployed, the South African unemployed experienced
their unemployment as more negative, were more committed towards
employment and more intensively searched for work. Moreover, country of
residence indirectly influenced unemployed people’s experiences, employment
commitment, and job search intensity via financial hardship. Some policy
recommendations are suggested
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/17904http://www.psychologicabelgica.com/articles/10.5334/pb-53-2-75/
DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/pb-53-2-75
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- Faculty of Humanities [2033]