Exkluderad från arbetsmarknaden - Berättelser om att leva i arbetslöshet i den svenska välfärdsstaten

Sammanfattning: This study investigates unemployment from the unemployed individuals´ perspective. Its main focus has been to portrait the experiences, feelings and attitudes of people who already have disadvantages on the labor market and has experience of unemployment. Data was collected from five different individuals who were selected on the basis of belonging to different specific groups of society that tend to have a higher risk of ending up in long-term unemployment (for instance immigrants, ex-offenders and disabled people). The procedure of the study was carried out through semi structured interviews with questions focusing on aspects such as physical and mental health, experiences of attitudes from the society towards unemployment, feelings about being excluded from the labor market etcetera. The analysis was conducted by using the different theoretical perspectives SOC (sense of coherence), social norms and power in order to give further strength to the arguments. From the findings of the study, conclusions can be made that the individuals are experiencing many different negative effect of unemployment, where the effect mainly are psychosocial. Feelings such as shame, failure and uselessness are examples of themes, which the respondents found of importance to mention. Other conclusions which was made was that power and norms in the society has an influence on the unemployed individuals’ feelings and sense of coherence.