Should underemployment be considered as a lifestyle choice?

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I have at various points in my life chosen to be on welfare. Being different can be very isolating which leads to depression and a spiral of emotional issues which can be just as debilitating as any physical handicap. I've allowed myself to burn through 20k of credit card money + 8k of savings, living off that for a couple of years, in complete poverty, with a drinking problem at the time, i'd go to many job interviews, get hired sometimes, be too afraid to go to some, go to others and get fired soon after because bosses would take a dislike to me despite my efforts to be smiling and ingratiating, but since if you don't make small talk and know how to talk about stuff you stand out as standoffish and rude it inevitably leads to boss dislike. in any event, i remember that first time, my money was all gone, i had gotten to living off credit cards just to eat and pay rent, finally that ran out too, i became homeless for a bit, that wasn't very fun and i was really about ready to off myself, when i made the decision that if not to myself at the very least to my family i owed it to them to try to at least live.. i also used some kind of twisted logic that as it was illegal to kill myself but i was breaking no laws to go on welfare that i was actually doing the more socially responsible/legal thing. anyways, got on welfare, got my own place, had big dreams to use it as a base to fix my life.. drank a lot, had a nervous breakdown, crazy anxiety attacks, health was horrible not even sure if it was anxiety attacks it felt so much like real heart problems though doctors never found anything.. still.. living off reduced rack donuts and pastry items and pepsi and cheap beer wasnt a great diet plan for my heart .. or any other part of my body probably. hm. anyways i dont drink anymore and its a long story how i arrived where i am but choosing welfare basically gave me an excuse not to kill myself, since it became a question of 'well, life sucks and im miserable.. but i do have a roof over my head and food in my stomach and some privacy.. i guess i might as well keep living in case things turn around, or i find the willpower to turn things around'. im on welfare right now too, not so much by choice though, as im working a parttime job also, being supplemented.. no one seems to want to hire me though given the whole no work history, even with best efforts to fake my resume to make it look SANE, (i dont admit to potential employers that ive been on welfare), hard though with zero friends or family, no one to lie for me etc etc, that's the problem i guess if you want a job theres no guarantee someone wants to give you a job, i dont really blame them for not hiring me. i basically got lucky at all to get this parttime job, more owing to this company having no office in the province i live in, the guy hiring me just some kid working as a regional supervisor type deal. anyways i dont know the point of all this, i know people have a hardon for hating people who go on welfare voluntarily, i'd just say that i can't think of many people who one day decide, while living a fabulous life with opportunity 'i think im so lazy that i will go on welfare and live a fabulous life', because the truth is, you can't really live a fabulous life on the money they give you and if you are making a decision to go on welfare its generally because you're messed up in one way or another and its kind of nice we live in a society where we have the luxury of excessive wealth to provide people with a chance to live for free while going through hard times.. anyways flame away, etc etc.

Thanks for your responses. I'm happy to see I'm not alone in this. I just find two days is not enough to recover from people - it wears me out and eventually I can't go to work any more. I can work 100 hours a week if I am by myself. So its not work itself.

I just find it strange accepting I don't need to work 9-5 when it's been drilled into me my whole life. But when have I done things the normal way

Just to clarify:

I take the meaning of underemployed to be employed below your potential because of reasons not relating to the job itself, eg. Social issues, anxiety. This could be working less hours or working in a less stressful job, for example. Being underemployed to the point of not covering basic costs wouldn't be a lifestyle choice I'd think.

Being on welfare would be unemployed. It's called the unemployment benefit in NZ.

I'm not really sure what all the welfare bashing is about. I considered it for a while, and then I realised it would be nearly impossible to live on and wouldn't be much of a life at all. You're not in a good place if you genuinely need it. There are people who abuse it of course, but that's not what this thread is about.

"Underemployment" would be working under your actual ability, right?

Sometimes that can be a choice, sometimes that's all you can find.

Going on disability isn't related, as that's unemployment based on one's innate abilities [or lack thereof].

I think you need to find a less social job, like being a programmer or something you can entirely do from home. That is, unless you have the money somehow already. I think we all can harness our special interests to be very successful at what we do and it's not only shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't do that, but giving the entire community a negative perspective. Just try to look for something that is more nontraditional.

Throughout my working life, I have felt under-employed and definitely that I was in the wrong job. I've only ever worked for local government and that was for 11 years. I fell into the job really. After leaving uni, with an ordinary degree (due to social anxiety) and no hope of getting a job in the subject of my degree, I did a post-grad course, which included a work placement. At the end of the course, the employer that I had done the work placement with had a vacancy for a clerical assistant, which they offered to me. The person leaving the post was an admin assistant (higher grade and paid a lot more). But, in order to just give the job to me, without a recruitment process, they brought me in at basic level. So, there I sat for ages, but eventually got promoted to the level I was actually working at, on a temp basis. Then we had a major re-organisation and I ended up back at my original grade again (nothing personal, all temp contracts ended) and this time doing the menial worked I was being paid for, in a different town. It was dire. Thankfully, I was only there for 3 months, when a higher graded post, more suited to my experience, came up.

You'd think I'd be happy with that, but I always felt that I could have done more. With my degree, I should have been a microbiologist. With my post-grad, I should have been working as an environmental assessor. Instead, I was sitting at a desk, updating spreadsheets and databases, etc and supervising people who were doing the same. Because I was in the wrong job, I never managed to prove my worth and was never deemed suitable for promotion. I was in a supervisory position, so I wasn't bottom of the heap, but having to prove to everyone that I was a good worker, despite feeling really uncomfortable with what was required of me, took it out of me. I didn't sleep well either. I found a niche in database design and in being the IT liaison, but the other tasks caused me no end of grief. I knew I was in the wrong job, but couldn't see a way out. My skills lay in IT, but I had no qualifications and my experience was limited, due to having too much other stuff to do (stuff I dragged my heels over, because of my insecurities). I was too exhausted to do any courses in the evening, to help with securing a suitable position.

I don't work just now and haven't worked since the birth of my daughter. However, this was a choice that my husband and I made. He earns a decent wage and we've been sensible over the years, so we can afford it and I'm not in receipt of any benefits. Were we to pay for childcare, there would not be much left over and we didn't see the point, when we don't need the cash. But, I do intend going back to work at some point. What I will be doing is another story.

OK, I did a bit of googling to see if there was an accepted definition of "underemployment", and there seem to be two themes: (1) working part-time instead of full-time, and (2) the one that surfaces in the popular press from time to time where a graduate or technically qualified person can only find work sweeping the streets.

I think the definition needs to be clarified, and I would propose something along the lines of any employment situation that does not make full use of the person's interests, knowledge, skills, talents and overall level of intelligence.

As I've mentioned elsewhere on this board, I went to school in the 1970s and 1980s. Nobody had heard of Asperger's Syndrome, and I went undiagnosed and unsupported. The bullying was insufferable, and I also struggled with certain executive-function related things like time management, planning and punctuality (boy, was I unconscious about time!). On at least two occasions that I know of (at ages 6 and 9), I was pulled out of class and assessed by an educational psychologist, because the teachers had noted that I wasn't making friends or achieving to the level of my perceived abilities. However, the psych failed to diagnose me with anything that could have gotten me any support, and because I aced every ability test, I couldn't have a statement of my educational needs given to the school. Only ret*d kids got "statemented".

So, because of the extreme bullying and my inability to complete enough work under the time pressure of an exam situation to score high marks, not to mention a highly visual, top-to-bottom learning style that was at complete odds with the rote way most teachers taught, I left the fifth form with a clutch of very mediocre exam passes, which put the kibosh on any chance of me doing A-levels in sixth form and going on to university. That, in a nutshell, is how my formal education got nuked.

Since then, I think I have been underemployed forever. Employers, colleges and society generally just assume that your highest level of educational attainment is a fair representation of your entire ability.

Because I could type (I had learned originally in my teens as I was interested in writing), I was channelled into office support jobs. Once a person has some experience at one thing, that becomes the only thing that subsequent companies and recruiters are willing to look at. I'm always forced back into taking another secretarial job because at least I have enough solid experience that I can get those sort of jobs. Even though I think I am temperamentally totally unsuited to it, and it doesn't use what I consider my real skills and aptitudes to be.

People have asked me why I haven't retrained or done a degree, but like other posters have noted, the work is exhausting. There's just no gas in the tank left over to study, and especially not now I care for and support my sick partner in addition to working a full-time job. I think that if I were to ever come into a huge amount of money, like winning the Lottery or getting a huge inheritance from a distant rich relative so that I didn't have to work, I'd probably need to spend the entire first six months in bed just getting over the shock. (Of working these rubbish jobs all these years, that is, not obtaining the money!)

Having said all that, I would love to have a job that tapped into one of my intense interests instead of stealing time away from them.

There was a time when all I wanted to do was be a musician/songwriter. At the risk of reinforcing a stereotype, as it happens I do have a kind of savant ability; I can pick up any instrument and just start playing it without lessons. I have also been writing and arranging my own material ever since I can remember. I wasn't too worried at age 16 when I left school screaming to escape the bullying as my career choice seemed obvious. But record companies are fickle - why should they take an interest in the geek girl (no matter how good the material or how much of a natural musician she may be) when they could find extrovert personalities with drop-dead looks who were totally willing to whip off their kit at the drop of a hat (talent or no talent)? I never put a band together to play pub gigs for obvious sensory reasons - I couldn't have abided a place crowded with leering drunk people and full of cigarette smoke.

While music could have been done without a degree (had Aspie-friendly ways of doing it prevailed), other interests of mine couldn't be turned into a career without one, and now that I have discovered/developed a passion for a certain area of science, this is where my lack of a proper formal education has come back to bite me in the ass. Organizations think I'm thick because I don't have qualifications, but I self-educate all the time, and I'm a member of certain societies much more selective than Mensa.

One academic I wrote to said he thought it was "very noble" that I am working and supporting myself, even though it's just a pay-the-bills job, but I don't feel noble at all. I feel under-utilized in the world and feel that my potential is going to waste. All I want is a chance to contribute in the area of my passion and stretch myself intellectually.

So while I can relate to the professionally qualified person stacking shelves, I don't think it's only professional qualifications that makes a shelf-stacker underemployed. Self-education and raw potential need to be factored into the equation too.

I am "underemployed," however that is only by the government's definition.

I only work part time, AND am on public assistance, by NECESSARY choice.

There are reasons for this. Personal reasons that I do not feel are appropriate to post here.

Some may judge me for this. I do not care. Those who judge know nothing of my circumstances. Those who are responsible for ensuring that public assistance is not abused, do know, and have deemed I am in need. End of story.

I refuse to feel ashamed for accepting that which I need to survive.

IOW: Just because it's a choice, doesn't mean it's the wrong choice.

Some people avoid applying for higher positions in their employment, even though they are able to do the job and would have a chance of getting it.

If somebody is able to support themselves on the lower salary, and have no particular use for more money, then there is not much point them going for a promotion. The increased responsibility, stress, working hours, expectation of working from home etc. may put them off.

Choosing part-time work (when full-time work is available, achievable and does not clash with other commitments such as childcare) could also be considered underemployment by lifestyle choice. Assuming that the person is self-supporting there is no issue with this, indeed it opens up employment to more people.

The only time were underemployment is a problem is when you want or need full employment.

In my situation I use my special interest knowledge to supplement the Supplimental Security Income I receive. Although there are business-like elements to that it is actually more of a hobby and doesn't fill in all of the blanks of what constitutes 'substantial gainful employment'.
If I were to choose to rely solely on the SSI, my family and I would been been living under bridges long ago. As it is, when fuel prices went up recently my financial ability to get projects finished was set back drastically, leading to additional anxiety with time and energy lost to even think of 'walking around the elephant' to find the find the next place to take a bite.

Relating the topic title at face value, when I was active in music I consciously avoided settings that would have advanced my profile; not wishing to have my full name to be linked to anything that would jeopardize the paltry safety net of the SSI, mainly that and the potentiality of having to board flight

the one job i have found to work well for me is security work afterhours. you basically get paid slightly above min wage to walk around every couple of hours and the rest of the time you are on your own to do just about anything you like. i know a lot of people bring their laptops to work and play video games on it, or do school work, i just bring books and a radio and read all night, there's something nice about getting paid to read, it feels less life-sapping than a lot of other employment options available to someone without higher education. Since it's after hours I don't have to deal with many people, never any bosses around, but sometimes people come in after hours, or some teenagers are outside causing trouble, but since I am in a uniform it seems easier somehow to be socially assertive, like being an actor on a stage, you can just get into the role and it feels less difficult.

anyways, i've never valued wealth or having a lot of luxuries, a lot of people are indoctrinated with this idea that they are wasting their life if they don't apply themselves actively to a professional pursuit. you have to ask yourself why it so happens that those around you all try to consciously or unconsciously pressure you in this direction? could it be because they are the ones most to benefit from you laying your life upon the altar of society to sacrifice and struggle for its sake? live your life for you, do those things which you enjoy, making webpages rather than going into a highly demanding engineering job is not a wasted life, what is a wasted life is doing something you don't really enjoy simply because you feel you 'should'.

I've been underemployed over the years. I'm a nurse but at times have substituted that stressful job for working at McDonald's, WalMart and the 47th St. Cleanup Crew in NYC. Unfortunately, I have to work as a nurse because my rent is $850/month. My other choice would be to get a less-paying entry job and move to a bad part of town where guns go off in the middle of the night and drug dealers rule the streets. Right now, I'm not doing so bad so I'd like to stay put. Yes, it means keeping up with a job I despise. Can I be underemployed and live here? Can I have my cake and eat it, too?