Coping with an unjust fate: The case of structural unemployment

Becoming a victim of structural unemployment means suffering an unjust fate. The present research examines the cognitive reactions subjects use to protect their belief in a just world and the related effects on their actual well-being within a sample of unemployed blue-collar workers in East Germany (all female). Results showed that the belief in a just world was positively correlated with attributing one’s unemployment to one’s own behavior and negatively with asking “why me?”, but uncorrelated with subjects’ readiness to change into another profession in order to get employed. Just world belief and depression were negatively related for those who either avoided the “why me?” question or who found an answer to it; but just world belief and depression was positively related for those women ruminating about an unanswered “why me?”. Results are consistent with the idea that the belief in a just world plays a significant role in the unemployed person’s coping process.