Long-term unemployment is a social concept with a strong negative connotation. It is a state of unemployment lasting twelve months or more. The affected do not feel only material or financial distress, but also, perhaps often forgotten psychosocial and emotional distress. In Slovenia, it still accounts for almost 50 percent of total unemployment. Both theory and existing research highlight a number of psychosocial consequences of long-term unemployment, from loss of financial security, social exclusion, loss of status and self-esteem, impact on health, the occurrence of depression and stress to the potential development of certain types of addiction. The majority of these will be presented in the theoretical part, while in the empirical part a more detailed analysis of the impact of long-term unemployment on an individual's leisure time will be presented, first on the basis of already conducted researches such as Marienthal, Cultures of unemployment and Late career unemployment, and then also on the basis of the results of my own research in the form of in-depth interviews with the long-term unemployed. With the loss of a job, an individual suddenly has a significantly larger amount of leisure time available. If in the initial phase, the individual copes with this quite easily, on the long run these changes among others also his everyday living. He begins to experience leisure time as something undesirable.
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