The Stigma Trap
Ofer Sharone
Abstract
Abstract This book shows how the unemployment stigma renders all workers, including workers who are highly experienced and hold advanced degrees from elite universities, precarious and vulnerable to being trapped in long-term unemployment. Stigma is an invisible but ubiquitous force that is powerful enough to erase the significance of past educational and professional achievements. Drawing on interviews with workers, recruiters, and career coaches this book analyzes the ways that the unemployment stigma distorts how employers view jobseekers. But it is not only employers. The same stigma of unemployment can rear its head when an unemployed worker tries to network with former colleagues, receive support from a coach, or even turn to a close friend or a spouse. With stigma reflected back from all directions it can be internalized and appear when one looks in the mirror. For anyone who has directly experienced unemployment, or knows someone who has, this book will be eye opening. It shows the subtle and profound ways that the unemployment stigma sets a trap that is difficult to escape. It also provides a sociological approach to supporting unemployed workers, and to countering this stigma and the institutions that underlie it.