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Physical and Mental Health Effects of Surviving Layoffs

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INSTITUTE OF BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE ! RESEARCH PROGRAM ON POLITICAL and ECONOMIC CHANGE ! University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder CO 80309-0484 WORKING PAPER PEC2003-0003!_______________________________________________________________________________ Physical and Mental Health Effects of Surviving Layoffs: A Longitudinal Examination Sarah Moore Leon Grunberg Richard Anderson-Connolly Edward S. Greenberg November, 2003 Research Program on Political and Economic Change Working Paper PEC2003-0003Layoffs 1 Running head: HEALTH EFFECTS OF SURVIVING LAYOFFS Physical and Mental Health Effects of Surviving Layoffs: A Longitudinal Examination Sarah Moore Leon Grunberg Richard Anderson-Connolly University of Puget Sound Edward Greenberg University of Colorado, Boulder Corresponding Author: Dr. Sarah Moore Department of Psychology University of Puget Sound 1500 N. Warner St. Tacoma, WA 98416 Tel. (253) 879-3749 FAX (253) 879-3500 email: [email protected] This research was supported by Grant no. AA10690-02 from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health.Layoffs 2 Abstract Using longitudinally collected data, we examined mental and physical health outcomes resulting from the type (i.e., none, indirect, or direct) and frequency (once or more than once) of contact workers had with company layoffs. In addition, we also tested the mediating effects of depression and alcohol consumption on the job attitudes – health outcomes relationship. We collected data on two separate occasions (in years 1997 and 1999) from 1244 participants working in varied occupations at a large manufacturing organization. Controlling for all baseline levels of the dependent measures, we found that those participants with direct layoff contact reported significantly worse job attitudes (e.g., role ambiguity, job security) and health outcomes (e.g., alcohol consumption, depression, and work injuries), than those respondents with indirect layoff contact. In turn, workers with indirect layoff contact reported poorer mental and physical health as compared to those without layoff contact. Participants with more than one exposure to indirect layoff contact were only slightly more likely to report health problems than those workers with a single experience. Analyses from structural equation modeling revealed that lower levels of job security and the higher levels of role ambiguity directly led to greater alcohol consumption and higher levels of depression and ultimately to more problems with alcohol, worsening physical health, and more workplace injuries. Limitations of this study, implications of these findings, and suggestions for future research are discussed.Layoffs 3 Physical and Mental Health Effects of Surviving Layoffs: A Longitudinal Examination Introduction Corporate downsizing has become an ongoing feature of the economic landscape in the United States (Cappelli, Bassi, Katz, Knoke, Osterman, & Useam, 1997). Sizeable numbers of employees have experienced layoffs and a much greater number anticipate layoffs, believing they might lose their jobs in the near future (Ellwood, Blank, Blasi, Kruse, Niskanen, & Lynn-Dyson, 2001). That there tend to be deleterious health consequences for those who are laid off and become unemployed has been fairly well-established by a large body of research (Dooley, Fielding, & Levi, 1996; Kasl, Rodriguez, & Lasch, 1998). Research on the effects of downsizing on the much larger population of layoff survivors (i.e., those who witness the layoffs of coworkers but remain employed) is less well-developed. Nevertheless, the findings from the studies that have examined the effects of large-scale layoffs on survivors’ health consistently find evidence of small yet important adverse health effects. For example, cross-sectional and longitudinal studies report increases in self-reported physical and psychiatric morbidity, including depression (Ferrie, Shipley, Marmot, Stansfield, & Smith, 1998; Grunberg, Moore, & Greenberg, 2001; Hughes, 2000; Woodward, Shannon, Cunningham, McIntosh, Lendrum, Rosenbloom, & Brown, 1999), increases in self-reported neck and back pain (Shannon, Woodward, Cunningham, McIntosh, Lendrum, Brown, & Rosenbloom, 2001), increases in certified sickness absence (Beale & Nethercott, 1988; Vahtera, Kivimaki, & Penti,Layoffs 4 1997), and increases in eating and Body Mass Index (Ferrie et al., 1998; Grunberg et al., 2001). Other researchers have noted the tendency of some individuals to turn to mood altering substances in an attempt to cope with such job-related distress (Reissman, Orris, Lacey, & Hartman, 1999). A few studies have also begun to explore possible causal pathways that might account for the association between surviving downsizing and adverse health outcomes. Not surprisingly, a key pathway is through the heightened job insecurity survivors feel as they anticipate possible additional rounds of layoffs (Ferrie, Shipley, Marmot, Martikainen, Stansfeld, & Smith, 2001; Grunberg et al., 2001; Kivimaki, Vahtera, Pentti, & Ferrie, 2000). There is also some evidence that certain workplace changes that often accompany downsizing, such as increased job demands, mediate the relationship between downsizing and physical (Kivimaki et al., 2000) and mental health (Moyle, 1998). Job demands have also been linked to increased incidents of spinal injury (Krause, Ragland, Fisher, & Syme, 1998) and greater psychological distress and physical health symptoms (Jamal, 1990; Spector, Dwyer, & Jex, 1988). Role ambiguity, another variable associated with downsizing, has also been found to predict physical strain (Reissman et al., 1999) and self-reported negative health symptoms (Mak & Mueller, 2001). Parker, Chmiel, and Wall (1997) noted enhanced well-being among employees surviving layoffs only when increased job demands were accompanied by clear role expectations among employees; job demands alone, absent role ambiguity, did not predict depressive symptoms or physical problems. Although intuitively plausible, current research does not find clear evidence that the reductions in social support and the disruptions to social relationshipsLayoffs 5 that often accompany large-scale layoffs are important linking mechanisms in the downsizing-health relationship (Kivimaki et al., 2000; Ferrie et al., 2001). Despite the recent progress that has been made in the study


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