Powerlessness, Work, and Community: A Longitudinal Study of Alienation and Alcohol Use (1988)

This study is a replication and a refinement of an earlier work which examined the bearing of three varieties of alienation—powerlessness, work alienation, and social isolation—on the use and abuse of alcohol. A sample of some 500 male respondents, composed of both a recaptured group (interviewed after a 4-year interval) and a newly interviewed group, exhibits essentially the same findings as in the original study: (1) powerlessness is related directly to drinking and to drinking problems, while work alienation and network (friendship) integration are not; and (2) the latter variables interact with powerlessness to produce distinctive outcomes. The longitudinal design allows us to demonstrate further that (1) change in powerlessness is associated with change in drinking, and (2) intervening stress experience (but not unemployment in particular) is associated with increased drinking problems. The discussion focuses on (1) the limited generalization of alienated labor to nonwork settings, (2) the significance of network norms in tracking the effects of social support, and (3) the importance of more analytical approaches to situational analysis.