This article demonstrates how the unemployment of neighbours can ameliorate the psychological costs of unemployment. In support of this premise, we find that while unemployment is always harmful, the gap in psychological well-being between employed and unemployed individuals is much less in relatively high unemployment neighbourhoods (particularly so for males and relatively older cohorts). Our proposed explanation is that people employ close points of social comparison with the result that any feelings of shame or embarrassment associated with unemployment are mitigated when surrounded by unemployed neighbours. One potentially important labour market implication of these findings is that it may be more difficult than anticipated to transition some people out of unemployment in high unemployment neighbourhoods. Apart from highlighting the place-specific nature of the relationship between unemployment and psychological well-being, our findings also highlight the importance of non-pecuniary factors, such as the social norm to work, in explaining the substantive negative psychological impact of unemployment.

本文展示了邻居的失业如何改善失业的心理成本。为了支持这一前提，我们发现尽管失业总是有害的，但在相对较高的失业地区（尤其是男性和年龄较大的人群）中，就业人员和失业人员之间的心理健康差距要小得多。我们建议的解释是，人们使用社会比较的近点，结果是当失业的邻居包围时，与失业相关的任何羞耻感或尴尬感都会减轻。这些发现可能对劳动力市场产生潜在的重要影响，那就是要使某些人摆脱高失业率地区的失业可能比预期的要困难。