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Coping with Unemployment through Online Social Support
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2014-05-24
Abstract
Unemployment is an unsettling reality, affiliated to financial restriction, a loss of social structure, and the risk of mental strain such as depressions and anxiety states. How well people overcome the incriminatory situation of unemployment is among others a matter of social support. Online social media such as social network sites and communities may offer additional possibilities to unemployed people to gain or receive social support. This paper posits that online social support plays an important role helping to cope with unemployment, and facilitate the search for new employment. Based on a structural equation model, the paper develops and tests the influence of online-mediated, enabling and caring social support on job search self-efficacy that may positively encourage the job search behavior of unemployed persons. In addition, we control the model for the factors gender, age, user experience and attitude towards the Internet. Based on 2,400 telephone interviews with unemployed individuals in Germany, we identify and confirm online social support as influential driver of job search behavior. Our results show that social support derived from new information and communication technologies does counteract to a certain degree the adverse effect of being unemployed. Enabling support and caring support through social media both contribute significantly to a higher job search self-efficacy, and job search self-efficacy, in turn, was shown to be a predictor of the job search behavior. Furthermore, our model confirms that these relationships differ in gender, age, user experience and attitude towards the Internet.
Language
English
Keywords
Unemployment
Social Media
Social Support
Self-Efficacy
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
Yes
Book title
Communication and the Good Life
Publisher
ICA International Communication Association
Publisher place
Washington
Start page
1
End page
34
Pages
34
Event Title
64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) 2014
Event Location
Seattle
Event Date
22.-26.05.2014
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
229603