Unemployment: A Case for Medicine and Psychology?

Abstract

AbstractUnemployment is one of the classical social risks that are covered by the welfare state. For cases in which unemployment stems from ill health, welfare states have long provided specific medicalized benefits (e.g., sickness and incapacity benefits). However, the boundary between unemployment and sickness/incapacity has received an increasing level of attention in the context of activation and retrenchment reforms. In this chapter, Linden and Reibling present the most recent literature on the medicalization of unemployment from the last two decades and illustrate how institutional setups and reforms have led to both the medicalization and de-medicalization of unemployment in Germany. Moreover, the authors reveal how medicalizing unemployed individuals affects labor market reintegration, health status, and public attitudes toward unemployed people.