The Throwaway Culture: Job Detachment and Rejection1.

Diminished self-esteem and a sense of uselessness that arise from permanent layoffs created in the process of deindustrialization are symptomatic of an increasingly problematic social class in developed countries. Observations of this enforced inconsequentiality on workers in the United Kingdom's South Wales Coalfield suggest that gerontologists who are knowledgeable in the effects of job detachment and loss might profitably examine this syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]