Commentary: The hidden and not so hidden benefits of work: identity, income and interaction

Work provides people with an income, and income is important for health. We know this. It is obvious, but work does much more. Work provides most of us with one of our primary roles in society: as a worker. We may see ourselves as mechanics, nurses, teachers, construction workers, farmers, scientists, architects or additional identities, but at the core we are all workers. We provide for ourselves and often for others. Work is not the only role that provides identity and meaning. Traditionally family, friendship and community roles add important dimensions in defining our basic societal roles. When we are robbed of such significant roles, particularly when we are older and less likely to be resilient to such shocks, we experience loss—and loss in many realms, both material and non-material. Clearly we experience a loss in income, and such losses close to retirement may be particularly challenging since they will not be replaceable with a short-time horizon, nor are opportunities easily available to work ‘double shifts’ to regain such financial loss. In this issue of IJE is an important article on the impact of job loss during the Great Recession in the USA and Europe, by Riumallo-Herl, Basu, Stuckler, Courtin and Avendano.1 The authors document in a compelling way the impact of job loss on depression for older men and women in advanced industrialized countries. They show that financial loss is important, but financial loss alone does not explain the whole story of the impact of job loss. The authors are insightful and provocative and set an agenda for the future. They suggest some solutions in the policy realm related to social protection, and find some problems harder to identify solutions for. Here I discuss three kinds of loss that they suggest may accompany the loss of a job in later adulthood. I speculate about what may be critical for health and well being so that we can move forward from the important foundation that Riumallo Herl et al. have laid. The three kinds of loss that may be central to affecting health and well-being include: (i) financial loss with social protection as a potential buffer; (ii) loss of identity and meaning with loss of such a major role; and (iii) loss of social interaction and engagement with a community of workers.