The study also incorporates figures from a 2025 France Travail survey of 2,098 unemployed people registered in category A, to shed light on the deterioration of their mental state.
Even if the direct and indirect mechanisms of the link between unemployment and a characterized depressive episode remain to be better identified, targeted prevention must concern the population of unemployed working-age people, notably the youngest women and those in single-parent families, the report’s authors stress.
In it, the authors present the experience of unemployment and quantitative evidence of its negative effects on health.
One in two people reports living or having lived through a situation of stigmatization since becoming unemployed.
The deterioration in health is explained in particular by the loss of financial resources, identity and social status, which places the stigmatization of the unemployed at the heart of psychosocial explanations, the study continues.
The unemployed are notably more numerous in reporting depression over the past year.
The stigmatization of the unemployed appears as a central psychosocial mechanism.
Among these unemployed people, 56% report having been discriminated against in access to housing, health or employment.
Thirty-seven percent feel taken less seriously and 30% less respected.
The study population comprises 14,471 working-age people aged 18 to 64 living in mainland France, interviewed by telephone.