Partner support and gender: Contexts for coping with job loss

This study examines the ways in which partner support and gender mediate the individual's experience of active coping in unemployment. The results revealed the impact of gender and partner support upon the meaning, value and impact of purposive activity in a sample of 75 unemployed women and men with dependent children. In particular, respondents with supportive partners reported better relationship quality, lower severity of problems, and a lower incidence of use of both active and avoidance coping strategies and less reliance on the support of professionals. Overall, women reported poorer relationship quality; while lack of support from the partner had a much greater effect on women than on men. Unsupported women reported higher problem severity and a greater need for practical help outside the family. The results are discussed in the light of the need to elaborate the conceptual and relational underpinnings of proactivity in unemployment research.