Loss of job hits men harder, emotionally and otherwise

Submitted by anthony on Mon, 2008-04-21 13:42

Article here. Excerpt:

"Picture a scenario where the male breadwinner of a family has lost his job but is so afraid to come clean to his loved ones that he carries on faking his commute to work, complete with business suit, tie and briefcase. It's one that has been imagined in various books and films - such as Falling Down, in which Michael Douglas plays a character who pretends to his mother that he still has a job to go to.

But could you ever imagine a woman behaving in that way? While the gender gap has been bridged in many areas of working life, experts say that when it comes to job losses, women are far better equipped than men to deal with the bitter blow of redundancy. And with forecasts last week predicting that the credit crisis could lead to up to 40,000 job losses in London's financial service sector over the next two years, it's a theory which many could soon find themselves putting to the test.

An international study of male suicides in 22 countries between 1974 and 1988, found that unemployment was a leading factor. Further studies in the UK confirm the links between unemployment, suicide and attempted suicide. The link between suicide and unemployment appears to be particularly strong for young men."

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A lot of families depend on one person for income. Usually one person is the breadwinner and without that paycheck a lot of things collapse. When that job is lost, that person feels worthless.

Spinning this around saying that women are better equipped is bullshit. IF women were the primary breadwinners 90% of the time (or whatever the statistic is), then they would statistically feel more like shit when they lose that job as well.

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Submitted by blaze4metal on Tue, 2008-04-22 18:30

... is it the least bit surprising that to a male his income is an important part of his identity?

When women view males as walking ATM machines, and when wifey can't get the money from hubby any more for one reason or another she runs to court gets a divorce and gets the State to extract the money for her, can you really be shocked that men feel their job is at least as important as women feel their figure is?

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Submitted by Paragon on Tue, 2008-04-22 16:49

One thing I find interesting about our culture is how we continue to hang on to the whole bourgeois Harlequin romance mythology about "finding your soul mate and living happily ever after...." and yet we have the Divorce Industry and the Family Courts subverting that social goal.

You have to conclude that romance is just another cheap commodity now, and that marriage is just a business exchange (sex for money) with an unenforceable contract.

What kind of people would put up with this?

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Submitted by Roy on Tue, 2008-04-22 17:27