Resilience, Coping Responses and Subjective Well Being: A Comparison of Unemployed and Employed Male Adults

Abstract

Unemployment will generate considerable stress and anxiety in the individual. Stress and adversity can come in the shape of family or relationship problems, health problems, or workplace and financial stressors, among others. Individuals demonstrate resilience when they can face such difficult experiences and rise above them with ease. Resilience is defined as an individual's ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity. Appropriate coping strategies are also required to overcome such difficult circumstances. Coping strategy is a behaviour that helps one to function better in a given situation. Coping is the process of managing taxing circumstances, expending efforts to solve personal and interpersonal problems and seeking to master, minimize, reduce or tolerate stress or conflict. Adequate coping responses influence the well being of an individual. Subjective well being is a phenomenon that includes people’s emotional responses, satisfactions with different life domains and global judgments of life satisfaction. It is an individual’s emotional and cognitive interpretation and evaluation of one’s own life. The aim of the present study is to study the resilience, coping responses and subjective well being among unemployed and employed male adults. So for this purpose, the total sample comprising of 60 male subjects (30 unemployed and 30 employed) within the age range of 27-34 years from Rohtak city was chosen. Tools utilized were the 14-item Resilience scale (RS14), Coping Responses Inventory (CRI-Adult Form) and Subjective well being inventory. Results indicated that there are significant differences among employed and unemployed male adults in relation to resilience and subjective well being. Employed male adults are more resilient than unemployed male adults and their well being is also better than unemployed male adults. The unemployed group show significantly higher level of emotional discharge in coping strategies.