When our expectations of a situation differ from reality, a form of cognitive dissonance emerges that can cause considerable discomfort. It should perhaps come as no surprise, therefore, that new research from the University of Texas at Austin finds a similar phenomenon when our job expectations aren’t met.
The research finds that these unmet expectations raise the likelihood of a range of poor health outcomes, from drug poisoning to suicide. The authors compared the life outcomes of nearly 12,000 men to the expectations they had for their professional lives as high school students in the 1980s.
The data reveals that men who thought they would be able to find work that didn’t require a college degree but who found a shortage of such work were nearly three times as likely to suffer from mental health and drug addiction than those men who expected (and found) jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree.
“Work plays a major role in how individuals experience their communities, derive a sense of purpose, and thus develop a sense of psychological well-being,” the researchers explain. “It’s possible that occupational expectations developed in adolescence serve as a benchmark for perceptions of adult success and, when unmet, pose a risk of self-injury.”
Unmet needs
The research reveals that the number of early deaths from self-injury has grown significantly in the past few decades, with numbers especially high among middle-aged white men, for whom numbers have risen by 9% for suicide and 31% for drug poisoning since 1980.
This has coincided with a clear decline in the number of well-paying jobs available that don’t require a college degree. The data found that those most likely to die from either suicide or drug poisoning were those who thought they would be able to earn a sufficient amount to support a family via semi-skilled labor when they were adolescents, but whose subsequent reality as adults didn’t support this ambition.
The study showed that neither educational attainment nor the actual job worked increased risk for death by self-injury. Furthermore, unmet occupational expectations were not associated with a higher risk of an early death by natural or other causes. This comparison further strengthened their conclusions about a link between a decline of working-class jobs and deaths of despair.
“Our findings suggest closed pathways to sustaining working-class jobs may contribute to men’s increasing rates of suicide and drug-poisoning mortality,” the researchers conclude. “The social, psychological and cultural ideals associated with certain occupations are important considerations in labor policy, such as minimum wage policies or job retraining programs, as strategies for suicide prevention.”
