Washington: Stress of an unemployed spouse can hurt the employed counterpart's job productivity or home life, a new research says.
The research examined daily stress felt by married couples where one of them were jobless. The study revealed that it affected both the spouses equally, the Journal of Applied Psychology reports.
Associate Professor Maw-Der Foo of University of Colorado Boulder's School of Business and Zhaoli Song of the National University of Singapore co-authored the paper which studied employee workplace issues, including those bearing on interpersonal relationships, according to a Colorado statement.
"If you feel bad at home there is going to be spillover at work where you will also feel lousy. Going into the study we thought that marital support might help alleviate the stress of unemployment on the family unit, but it didn't turn out to be the case," said Foo.
One of the take-home messages from the study and others Foo has conducted on the workplace is that organisations need to be more sensitive and supportive when their employees have family members -- particularly a spouse -- who is unemployed.
"Organisations can implement family-friendly policies to help their employees fulfil their family roles, which in turn may increase the employee's productivity," he said.
However, in difficult economic times, many organisations may elect to limit some services for their employees, such as couple counselling, due to the cost involved.
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