Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. So the chronic effects that the study found are not linked to the lack of a job, but the lack of income that a job brings. Because people without a job but with money don't suffer those effects.
This isn't complicated. People like the feeling of doing productive work. If you are independently wealthy, you can do whatever you want. Hobbies or volunteering, among other things, fill that need. If you are employed, you get that reward with your paycheck at least. Ideally the work itself is also rewarding, providing the satisfaction of doing something productive. This is why people can be happy doing rewarding wo…
It was hard to start off, of course, because it's unconventional. But now it is sweeter than conventional employment ever was for me, where I did not fit and caused issues for everybody involved.
That's not to say one or other is inherently superior. And that's the point, in a way. Conventional employment is only one of the possible means through which the claimed rewards of life can be had.
Beyond that, the reliance is only a function of social structure. That is, if we collectively choose to "look down" upon certain demographics, then those demographics will indeed feel perenially looked down upon! - because we've made it so.