The single most important change in the British labour market over the last two decades has been the re-emergence of mass unemployment. However, there has been remarkably little systematic research into the factors that lead people to become unemployed and on how being unemployed affects their lives.

Focusing on six contrasting areas - Aberdeen, Kirkcaldy, Rochdale, Coventry, Northampton, and Swindon - this study breaks entirely new ground. First, it investigates the effect of being unemployed on individuals' attitudes to work, their social relationships, and their psychological health, using large-scale surveys that allow direct comparison with people in employment.

Secondly, it takes into account a wide range of variables - including the local labour market, the nature of household relations, and people's work and family histories. Unemployment is likely to remain a problem into the next century. This book offers the most powerful and comprehensive examination to date of this key area of policy and will become a standard work of reference on the subject.

This volume is part of a series arising from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative - a major interdisciplinary programme of research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The programme focused on the impact of the dramatic economic restructuring of the 1980s on employers' labour force strategies, workers' experiences of employment and unemployment, and the changing dynamics of household relations.