Social participation and subjective well-being of long-term unemployed: why is paid work so hard to substitute for?

In a study of SWB among 948 Dutch long-term unemployed, the two main questions were (I) do long-term unemployed learn To adjust, i.e. does the negative effect on SWB wear off over unemployment duration?; and (2) does social participation help adjustment and restoration of SWB? The effect of unemployment on SWB was negative, as expected, but was unrelated to unemployment duration. Neither income nor social participation explained variation in SWB to a substantive degree. Apparently, unemployment deprives people of an important source of well-being which is difficult to compensate. The proposed explanation for these findings comes from Social Production Function theory (Lindenberg 1986, 1996). SPF-theory specifies an instrumental hierarchy of universal human goals. It provides a systematic tool to study the processes by which people realize these goals, given the restrictions and resources they face. We argue that SPF-theory, by giving insight in the process of substitutio