Psychological distress during unemployment and beyond: social support and material deprivation among youth in six northern European countries

Psychological distress is a serious problem among unemployed youth, and may lead to various social and psychological problems. In this study, we examine patterns of distress among previously unemployed youth that have experienced five different labor market outcomes over a period of 6 months in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden. We find that moving beyond unemployment is associated with less distress, in particular among those who have found permanent employment, but also among those who have found temporary employment, have returned to school, or are staying at home. Perceptions of material deprivation and parental emotional support directly affect distress in all labor market outcomes, and mediate the effects of various other factors on such distress. The effects of socio-demographic characteristics, living arrangements, unemployment history and attitudes, and parental support are found to be specific to gender and labor market outcomes, while the effects of material deprivation are uniform across all such categories. Further studies are needed to disentangle structural and individual effects, the causal complexities involved in processes of social support, and to determine the extent to which such models equally predict psychological distress among the unemployed and other groups of youth.