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The Public Health Costs of Job Loss

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  • Kuhn, Andreas
  • Lalive, Rafael
  • Zweimüller, Josef

Abstract

We study the short-run effect of involuntary job loss on comprehensive measures of public health costs. We focus on job loss induced by plant closure, thereby addressing the reverse causality problem of deteriorating health leading to job loss as job displacements due to plant closure are unlikely caused by workers' health status, but potentially have important effects on individual workers' health and associated public health costs. Our empirical analysis is based on a rich data set from Austria providing comprehensive information on various types of health care costs and day-by-day work history at the individual level. Our central findings are: (i) overall expenditures on medical treatments (hospitalizations, drug prescriptions, doctor visits) are not strongly affected by job displacement; (ii) job loss increases expenditures for antidepressants and related drugs, as well as for hospitalizations due to mental health problems for men (but not for women); and (iii) sickness benefits strongly increase due to job loss.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 7420.

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Date of creation: Aug 2009
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7420

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Keywords: Health; Job loss; Plant closure; Social cost of unemployment;

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References

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Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. IZA Paper - Public Health Consequences of Job Loss
    by Liam Delaney in Geary Behaviour Centre on 2009-11-15 20:02:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
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Cited by:
  1. Jan Marcus, 2012. "The Effect of Unemployment on the Mental Health of Spouses: Evidence from Plant Closures in Germany," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 488, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
  2. Mohamed Ali Ben Halima & Thierry Debrand & Camille Regaert, 2012. "Sick Leaves: Understanding Disparities Between French Departments," Working Papers DT50, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Oct 2012.
  3. Blanchflower, David G; Oswald, Andrew, 2011. "Antidepressants and Age," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 43, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
  4. Bart Cockx & Muriel Dejemeppe, 2010. "The Threat of Monitoring Job Search. A Discontinuity Design," CESifo Working Paper Series 3267, CESifo Group Munich.
  5. Mohamed Ali Ben Halima & Thierry Debrand, 2011. "Durée d’arrêt de travail, salaire et Assurance maladie : application microéconométrique à partir de la base Hygie," Working Papers DT42, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Sep 2011.
  6. Janet Currie & Erdal Tekin, 2011. "Is there a Link Between Foreclosure and Health?," NBER Working Papers 17310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Marcus, Jan, 2012. "The effect of involuntary unemployment on the mental health of spouses," Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 65413, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  8. Chatterji, Pinka & Alegria, Margarita & Takeuchi, David, 2011. "Psychiatric disorders and labor market outcomes: Evidence from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 858-868.
  9. Jan Marcus, 2012. "Does Job Loss Make You Smoke and Gain Weight?," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 432, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
  10. Schmitz, Hendrik, 2011. "Why are the unemployed in worse health? The causal effect of unemployment on health," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 71-78, January.
  11. Bergemann, Annette & Grönqvist, Erik & Gudbjörnsdottir, Soffia, 2011. "The effects of job displacement on the onset and progression of diabetes," Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48695, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  12. Mohamed Ali Ben Halima & Thierry Debrand & Camille Regaert, 2011. "Arrêts maladie : comprendre les disparités départementales," Working Papers DT39, IRDES institut for research and information in health economics, revised Feb 2011.

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