Individual joblessness, contextual unemployment, and mortality risk.

ABSTRACT: Longitudinal studies at the level of individuals find that employees who lose their jobs are at increased risk of death. However, analyses of aggregate data find that as unemployment rates increase during recessions, population mortality actually declines. We addressed this paradox by using data from the US Department of Labor and annual survey data (1979-1997) from a nationally representative longitudinal study of individuals-the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Using proportional hazards (Cox) regression, we analyzed how the hazard of death depended on 1) individual joblessness and 2) state unemployment rates, as indicators of contextual economic conditions. We found that 1) compared with the employed, for the unemployed the hazard of death was increased by an amount equivalent to 10 extr

SUBMITTER: Tapia Granados JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4108041 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature