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Those currently unemployed are more likely to report a lower sense of well-being, thus unemployment is likely not voluntary, concludes a study titled “The effects of low-pay and unemployment on psychological well-being: a logistic regression approach” by Theodossiou. Through self reported data and a wide array of dummy variables, the study finds correlates between age/gender and mental toll of being unemployed.

While I found much of these reported findings believable and perhaps even intuitive, I still find myself uncertain of how much this data is really telling us. First off, self reported data always calls some question on validity. In what fashion and context is this being obtained? We see the literal text of the question they were asked, but the answer to the question “Have you recently been feeling reasonably happy, all things considered?” could change by the hour for any given person. Also who is being asked this? Just anyone 16-91 year old? How is this sample found? Are those who are more likely to respond to this sort of study more likely to answer in a certain way? We cannot say from this piece.

Also, the conclusion that if people don’t like doing something, and they do that thing, then it must be involuntary, seems unconvincing. That is not to say I believe this conclusion is necessarily incorrect, but human emotions and reasoning are not perfect. It may seem fair to assume that people employed involuntarily, but using the fact that unemployed people are unhappy to show that it is against their will doesn’t feel like it tells us much. Would it be expected that people who are unemployed (which means they are actively searching for a job) would be way happier? I don’t think anyone would expect that. I believe this study could have told us more with some more data.