As a young psychologist turned researcher in the work environment, I was sad to realise that not only did we already recognise that the psychosocial environment at work can cause mental ill health, such as depression, exhaustion and even suicide, but that we knew a lot about how it does so, and had for a long time. Had we taken this more seriously, we could have prevented the epidemic of depression and exhaustion raging in most industrialised societies. We must do better to fight it now.
What is needed is for employers’ higher management to change the psychosocial work environment so that employees have the resources to meet the demands on them. There is, however, simply no incentive for them to do so. (No, mindfulness or lifestyle changes do not suffice. Tempting, but no.)
Such changes inevitably mean a reduction in demands – the number of work tasks, their difficulty and time pressure, etc. – which may seem unattractive from the point of view of short-term efficiency and profit. Resources such as time, personnel and support available to the employee, or just basic respect, must be sufficient. The imbalance between demands and resources is central to the development of common mental illnesses such as depression and exhaustion.
Instead, working life – and our whole society, as sociologist Hartmut Rosa describes it – is accelerating. More and more needs to be done in an increasingly shorter period of time. We have to run faster and faster not to fall behind or, worse, fall into poverty. With more and more strict rules and regulations for sickness benefits and unemployment support, we hang onto our jobs irrespective of the conditions until the end, sometimes literally.
When employees do leave their employer or are forced into sickness absence or unemployment, there will always be prospective employees lining up, desperate for an income. This is because the conditions in what I have elsewhere called the psychosocial welfare environment are significantly worse than the conditions in the psychosocial work environment. This is one reason that work can be said to be good for health and wellbeing. The alternative, for most of us, is worse. The imbalance between demands and resources increases the likelihood of mental illness in the psychosocial welfare environment as well. Subjectively high demands are placed on work-disabled individuals who, due to disability or illness, are likely to have few resources to handle them. And few resources (financial, or in terms of support) are provided. This imbalance between demands and resources is a significant source of stress and depression, effectively hindering rehabilitation for those who most need it.
In the psychosocial welfare environment in Sweden, the UK and most modern welfare states, financial resources are conditional and distributed with insecurity and in the short term. To be dependent on benefits is to be stuck in a swamp of poverty, desperately keeping above the surface by clinging on to a stump of rope that has been thrown down and that will certainly break, without the assurance of another stump of rope to replace it.
A universal basic income that is unconditional and distributed regularly to all individuals could be considered an additional resource in the psychosocial welfare environment. It would not only reduce insecurity and act as a buffer against ill health but would also, in line with work environment research and theory, enable an accumulation of further resources, such as health. Like a steady floor where there was once a quagmire, it would enable a sense of security that makes it possible to look beyond the next payment, to actually plan ahead and stake out a direction for one’s life. That is why a basic income enables individuals to say no to health-adverse work conditions, as has been argued extensively elsewhere.
In addition, I believe that basic income is the only way to motivate employers to invest in the psychosocial work environment to reduce the imbalance between demands and resources. When the psychosocial welfare environment is no longer detrimental, the fear and stigma of unemployment fade and turning down a bad job becomes a possibility. This changes the balance between supply and demand in the labour market. In order to compete for workers, employers will have to offer something better than an exhausting work environment that triggers depression.
Herbert Marcuse described a society as one-dimensional where we are taught to be workers and consumers and nothing else, with no other needs or desires. The more we work, the more time-saving products we need to consume, increasing the need for their manufacture and transportation, creating jobs and enhancing the need for us to work more so we can afford them. I believe that the security of basic income could initiate another vital global societal change. Work and society, the circle of production and consumption, is accelerating. It accelerates through a world where the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than it has been for two million years and where 3.6 billion individuals are highly exposed to climate change, such as rising sea levels and disappearing sources of fresh water. By working and consuming, we emit greenhouse gases as we go, through industries, the need for cheap energy and transportation of products.
If basic income serves as a safe and steady floor to support our accelerating working life, bringing another dimension to our society, perhaps this will reduce our fear of falling either behind or down and will enable us to lift our eyes and see what’s ahead. Perhaps it could even serve as a means of connecting to others and together staking out a different direction. When we lift our eyes, it becomes obvious that we are accelerating towards a climate as well as a psychological catastrophe, but the insecurity we experience hinders us from even envisioning alternative futures. Insecurity makes us short-sighted, but we need to look up now. Basic income offers an opportunity to do this.
Anna-Carin Fagerlind Ståhl has a background in psychology and a PhD in medical science. Anna-Carin works on a freelance basis as a researcher, analyst and writer on issues related to work and society, work environment, stress and health.
Basic Income as a preventive, health-promoting and motivating resource in the psychosocial welfare environment by Anna-Carin Fagerlind Ståhl is available on the Bristol University Press Digital here.
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