Men are worse at unemployment than women. Researchers have revealed why

Capabilities refer to the factors that determine a person's access to a fulfilling life - health, well-being and other important values.

Details: Tiina Ahonen et al, Investigating the Capability Approach: How Long-Term Unemployed People in Finland Perceive Their Access to Commodities, Conversion Factors and Capabilities, Social Indicators Research (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s11205-025-03519-8

Gender differences

Researchers have also found that men who find themselves in long-term unemployment rate their abilities worse than women in the same situation. Social research professor Timo Toikko emphasises the importance of this finding:

"In order to provide help more effectively, we need to take into account the characteristics of men and women separately. Then we can develop targeted measures that improve well-being by taking gender differences into account.

How the 'Capability Package' is formed

The research is based on the "Capability Approach", based on the hypothesis that available resources (e.g. financial support) can only turn into real life chances if the conditions are in place: social connections, favourable environment, accessible services.

1. Long-term unemployment: According to doctoral student Tiina Ahonen, people who are unemployed for a long time often have limited resources and depend on social support.
2. Social and environmental factors: It is the immediate neighbourhood (family, friends, communities) that makes it possible to "convert" available funding or benefits into real opportunities to improve health and well-being.

Study data

• Sample: 511 people aged 20-64 years in long-term unemployment in Finland. Data were collected in 2016 as part of the PROMEQ (Inclusive Promotion of Health and Wellbeing) project. A sample of 2,190 people representing the "general" Finnish population was used for comparison.
• METHODS: Cross-tabulation, confirmatory factor analysis and structural modelling (SEM) to identify relationships between resources, conversion factors and capability outcomes.

Outcomes and Recommendations

The researchers emphasise that there are differences in how men and women who have lost their jobs perceive their life situation. This suggests the need to make employment policies more flexible and to take gender into account when designing assistance programmes.

Professor Tomi Mäki-Opas emphasises that the state system "is currently too narrowly focused on supporting the unemployed, often without sufficient attention to how these people can 'convert' the benefits and social contacts they receive into real opportunities to improve their lives and health".

The researchers say the results suggest that better-designed forms of support - emphasising social connections and mental health - would help improve living standards and self-esteem among the long-term unemployed.