The end of a journey – PhD completed

I am very happy to announce that I successfully defended my PhD. The whole dissertation, including full-texts of the three published papers “Prejudices Against the Unemployed–Empirical Evidence From Germany”, “Zum Stigmabewusstsein Arbeitsloser: Eine Mixed-Methods-Analyse” and “Einflussfaktoren auf das Stigmabewusstsein Arbeitsloser” as well as a working paper version of "Stigma-Consciousness in the Unemployed: A Matter of Neighborhood?", is available for download here (some parts are in German, some are in English).

Very briefly, I would like to thank all those who have always supported me on this journey. First of all Monika Jungbauer-Gans and Christiane Gross, who made my start into academia very easy and always supported me. Mark Trappmann for his support regarding the data access and the PASS. Of course all my colleagues, especially Thomas Gurr, Johann Carstensen and Corinna Frodermann. And last but not least, my family and especially my wife Vanessa.

Stigma-Consciousness of and Prejudices Against the Unemployed

This publication-based dissertation deals with a ubiquitous phenomenon of modern societies: social exclusion or the risk of social exclusion. As a specific manifestation of this phenomenon, it focuses on the stigmatisation of the unemployed and takes a look at two perspectives that have been investigated comparatively little so far: Prejudice against the unemployed and stigma-consciousness of the unemployed. In a first article, the perspective of the employed population is considered. The central research interests are the extent and determinants of prejudices against the unemployed. In the second and third article, the perspective of the unemployed is explored through their stigma-consciousness, each with different theoretical and methodological approaches. Finally, the fourth article brings both perspectives together. Prejudices in the working population represent an important theoretical mechanism for the development of stigmatisation and stigma-consciousness within the framework of the Labling Approach.

The first article finds higher levels of prejudice for some of the studied groups, who are disadvantaged on the labour market, in line with Social Identity Theory. Although higher prejudice is found for people with lower social status, the assumed mediation of the effects of disadvantaged groups on social status cannot be found. A moderation of this effect by self-efficacy can only be found for the group of persons with a migration background. Respondents with a first-generation migration background have higher prejudices, especially with lower self-efficacy.

The second article focuses on the three sub-dimensions of stigma-consciousness – awareness, denial and disaffiliation – and uses a mixed method design to analyse determinants of these dimensions. The hypotheses are derived based on qualitative interview material and Goffman's stigma concept as a sensitising concept. The central results are that people receiving unemployment benefit II are more affected by negative attributions than those not receiving benefits or receiving unemployment benefit I, and that the scores on all three dimensions are higher when respondents attribute an additional value to being employed or experience a higher degree of material deprivation.

The third article examines determinants of stigma-consciousness as general construct using the labelling approach and derives three key mechanisms: scope of the norm and extent of deviation, visibility of deviation and formal and informal societal control. Overall, higher stigma-consciousness is found with a second unemployment episode (for men), higher current unemployment duration, material deprivation, and job search obligation (for men). The results largely support the assumptions of the labelling approach and in particular the mechanisms of extent and visibility of deviation as well as formal societal control.

The fourth article is devoted to the surprising result from article three, in which no effect of informal societal control could be found. Instead, an alternative operationalisation of informal societal control is derived via regional variation in the extent of prejudice against the unemployed in the working population. The assumed positive effect of the regional strength of prejudice on stigma-consciousness can be partially confirmed. However, contrary to expectations, there is a moderating effect of the variability of prejudice within a region, so that the effect of regional strength of prejudice is more positive the more the strength of prejudice varies within the same region.

Keywords: prejudice, stigma-consciousness, stereotype, stigma, unemployment, mixed-method, Labeling Approach, societal control, neighborhood