Personal Characteristics, Unemployment, and Anxiety among Highly Educated Immigrants
| Author | Roni Kaufman,Rachel Lev‐Wiesel |
| Date | 01 August 2004 |
| Published date | 01 August 2004 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0020-7985.2004.00289.x |
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© 2004 IOM
International Migration Vol. 42 (3) 2004
ISSN 0020-7985
* Social Work Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
Personal Characteristics,
Unemployment, and Anxiety
among Highly Educated Immigrants
Rachel Lev-Wiesel and Roni Kaufman*
ABSTRACT
This exploratory study examines the relationship between personal
resources (sense of potency, marital quality, social support from family and
friends), the duration of unemployment, and the level of state anxiety
experienced by highly educated, unemployed, middle-aged immigrants.
Studying the anxiety levels among populations at-risk such as unemployed
immigrants is particularly important in the context of situations of military
conflict. In such situations, when formal support systems are in the pro-
cess of erosion, the unemployed must increasingly rely on social and famil-
ial support. The following measures were examined in an anonymous,
self-report questionnaire: potency (defined as a person’s enduring confi-
dence in his/her own capacities and confidence in, and commitment to, his/
her social environment which is perceived as being characterized by a
basically meaningful order and just distribution of rewards), social support
from friends and family, marital quality, and state anxiety. Results indicate
that personal resources – particularly potency and social support from
family – predicted the level of state anxiety among immigrants. Duration of
unemployment was also positively correlated with state anxiety. A major
recommendation that emerges is the need to foster the development of
social support groups consisting of both veterans and new immigrants in
order to broaden the social ties of the immigrants. This may assist new-
comers not only in finding jobs, but also in coping with political and eco-
nomic uncertainties in a new cultural context.
58 Lev-Wiesel and Kaufman
INTRODUCTION
This exploratory study examines the relationship between personal and family
resources, the length of unemployment, and the level of anxiety among highly
educated, unemployed, midlife immigrants in Israel. High rates of unemploy-
ment among immigrants are widely encountered in immigration-receiving coun-
tries (Chiswick et al., 1997; Miller and Neo, 1997) because of the incompatibility
between the new reality and the immigrants’ knowledge, skills, and know-how.
At the same time, the influx of immigrants affects the general labour market of
a host country and may, in turn, affect the employment rates of immigrants
(Kaufman and Mirsky, 2004). More than one million immigrants from the former
Soviet Union (FSU) arrived in Israel during the last decade (1991 to 2000),
making it the largest population group of new immigrants during this period.
A unique characteristic of the FSU immigrants was their relatively high educational
level compared to veterans and immigrants from Asia (immigrants had an aver-
age of 13.6 years of education; Jewish veterans had an average of 11.8 years of
education) (Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, 2000).
Their integration into the labour market was facilitated by massive investments
of foreign companies in the wake of the Oslo Accords in September 1993. This
coupling of financial and human capital – immigrant engineers and scientists –
together with highly supportive government employment policies enabled the
newcomers to integrate into the work market (Kaufman and Mirsky, 2004).
In 2000, the Israeli economy entered a prolonged recession (Bank of Israel, 2001).
This recession was also reflected in a rise in unemployment from 6.7 per cent in
1996 to 10.4 per cent in 2002 (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2002); the rate of
unemployment among the Israeli-Arab minority (18% of the general population)
was 12 per cent. Between the first quarter of 2001 and the first quarter of 2002,
another 52,000 Israelis, including both highly educated and poorly educated,
found themselves jobless (Sinai, 2002).
Despite their relatively high level of education, compared to the native population,
unemployment is particularly high among immigrants. In 1999, the general rate
of unemployment in Israel was 8.8 per cent, while the rate was 11.4 per cent
among FSU immigrants and 19 per cent among academic unemployed (Central
Bureau of Statistics, 2000).
Although immigrants from the FSU comprise only 16 per cent of the popula-
tion, they constitute 36 per cent of the welfare recipients of working age. Many
of these (more than 50%) are older than age 35 (Morgenstin and Schmeltzer,
2000). Many FSU immigrants to Israel are highly educated. Despite this, the
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