Businesses often treat layoffs as one of several tools they can deploy to increase profitability. But the toll of layoffs as a routine business practice can be extraordinary for the people who lose their jobs.
Research: How Losing a High-Paying Job Affects Family Relationships
Gender norms make unemployment an unequal burden among heterosexual couples in the U.S.
February 03, 2023
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Summary.
Layoffs and other job losses not only affect people’s career prospects and finances; they affect people’s relationships with family, too. But these affects are quite different depending on the gender of the person out of work. Research on well-off, heterosexual couples with children found that, while men’s job losses were seen as both urgent and shameful, women’s job losses were more often framed as a way for mothers to spend more time with their children. Both of these reactions can be harmful for both the people who lost a job and for their loved ones. To better support families with a person out of work, society needs to start destigmatizing unemployment and decoupling gender with paid and unpaid work.