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Macroeconomic Change, Unemployment, and Job Stress

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Work and Mental Health in Social Context

Part of the book series: Social Disparities in Health and Health Care ((SDHHC))

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Abstract

The on-going change from Fordist to post (neo)-Fordist labor markets and job structures is representative of long-term, or secular, trends that result in relatively permanent structural changes to the macroeconomy. Underlying these trends are changes in commodity and financial markets, such as globalization, and the development of new technologies, such as computerization. But these secular trends are also punctuated by short-term economic trends: the cycles of market expansion and contraction that are endemic to all market economies. In the 40 year period from 1970 to 2010 that broadly encompasses the transition from Fordism to post (neo)-Fordism, the United States experienced six such economic cycles: (1) expansion from 1971 through 1973 and contraction in 1974–1975; (2) expansion from 1975 through 1979 and contraction in 1980; (3) expansion from late 1980 into 1981 and contraction in 1981–1982; (4) expansion from 1983 through 1990 and contraction in 1990–1991; (5) expansion from 1992 through 2000 and contraction in 2001–2002; (6) and expansion from 2003 through late 2007, ending with the contraction of the “Great Recession” that started in late 2007 (based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, USA

    Mark Tausig & Rudy Fenwick

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  1. Mark Tausig
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  2. Rudy Fenwick
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Correspondence to Mark Tausig .

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Tausig, M., Fenwick, R. (2011). Macroeconomic Change, Unemployment, and Job Stress. In: Work and Mental Health in Social Context. Social Disparities in Health and Health Care. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0625-9_5

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