Coping and Mental Well-being among Unemployed Youth—A Northern European Perspective

In unemployment research, coping is frequently confounded with outcome, implying that certain strategies are better than others, and that coping is more or less a problem-solving strategy. Emphasizing coping as merely problem solving devalues, however, its other functions that concern well-being. In unemployment research, the activities of the young can be understood through a broader conceptualisation of the ways in which they attempt to master societal conditions through individual action. This article focuses on the different coping patterns among unemployed youth in six Northern European countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden, and on the relationship between different individual coping strategies, resources and constraints and mental well-being. The findings show how coping with unemployment is generated and shaped by different societal contexts.