The Daily Caller

The Daily Caller

Study: Better on mind to be unemployed than to have a job you hate

1:19 PM 03/20/2011
Laura Donovan

Being unemployed may be better for your mental state than having a job you hate. According to a new Australian study, having an unstable, demanding and thankless job could make you unhappier than not having a job at all.

Once upon a time, researchers thought having a job made a person feel needed and fulfilled. That may be true if you have a job you enjoy, but securing a bad job is taxing on mental health. Experts at Australian National University decided to investigate how a person’s job affects individual well-being. They analyzed seven years of data from over 7,000 respondents of an Australian labor survey for the Occupational and Environmental Medicine study and found low quality jobs that came with high demands, low decision making control, high insecurity and decreased rewards had a higher negative effect than joblessness.

Full story: Having a bad job is worse than no job for mental health

Tags: Mental health
  • Isabel.tx888@gmail.com

    I must agree with the article 100%. I can attest to the awful pains of having a job that I totally despised. I would literally have chest pains every night, filled with anxiety about having to endure one more day at that freaking place. While I was busy looking for another job elsewhere my company was busy planning layoffs which I so luckily landed! Oh Thank The Gods! Unemployment, here I come. I was never happier and my health vastly improved. Personal happiness should always be number one, since it could potentially affect your health.

  • ChillytheAlaskan

    Must be interviewing or studying the unemployed permanent residents of the welfare state, as it isn’t very happy or good for your mental state worrying where your next meal is coming from or where you are going to be living next week. Even a miserable job can make you happy when the government doesn ‘t force your fellow citizens to support these deadbeats.

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