However, older individuals (particularly women) report a reduction in social contacts after becoming unemployed,
typically spending their days alone at home.
On becoming unemployed, a person loses a socially approved role and the positive self-evaluations that go with it.
The new position is widely felt to be of lower prestige, deviant, second rate, or not providing full membership in society.
Even when social welfare benefits remove the worst financial hardships,
there may be shame attached to receiving funds from public sources and a seeming failure to provide for one’s family.