IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v18y2009i9p1075-1089.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does job loss cause ill health?

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Salm

Abstract

This study estimates the effect of job loss on health for near elderly employees based on longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. Previous studies find a strong negative correlation between unemployment and health. To control for possible reverse causality, this study focuses on people who were laid off for an exogenous reason – the closure of their previous employers' business. I find no causal effect of exogenous job loss on various measures of physical and mental health. This suggests that the inferior health of the unemployed compared to the employed could be explained by reverse causality. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Salm, 2009. "Does job loss cause ill health?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(9), pages 1075-1089, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:9:p:1075-1089
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1537
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1537
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.1537?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Artazcoz, L. & Benach, J. & Borrell, C. & Cortès, I., 2004. "Unemployment and Mental Health: Understanding the Interactions among Gender, Family Roles, and Social Class," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(1), pages 82-88.
    2. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    3. Currie, Janet & Madrian, Brigitte C., 1999. "Health, health insurance and the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 50, pages 3309-3416, Elsevier.
    4. Martin Browning & Anne Moller Dano & Eskil Heinesen, 2006. "Job displacement and stress‐related health outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(10), pages 1061-1075, October.
    5. Kathleen McGarry, 2004. "Health and Retirement: Do Changes in Health Affect Retirement Expectations?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
    6. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Johannesson, Magnus, 2003. "A note on the effect of unemployment on mortality," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 505-518, May.
    7. Anders Bj�rklund, 1985. "Unemployment and Mental Health: Some Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 20(4), pages 469-483.
    8. Peter Adams & Michael D. Hurd & Daniel L. McFadden & Angela Merrill & Tiago Ribeiro, 2004. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise? Tests for Direct Causal Paths between Health and Socioeconomic Status," NBER Chapters, in: Perspectives on the Economics of Aging, pages 415-526, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3309-3416 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Daniel Sullivan & Till von Wachter, 2009. "Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(3), pages 1265-1306.
    11. Petri Böckerman & Pekka Ilmakunnas, 2009. "Unemployment and self‐assessed health: evidence from panel data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 161-179, February.
    12. Marcus Eliason & Donald Storrie, 2009. "Does Job Loss Shorten Life?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    13. Melvin Stephens, 2004. "Job Loss Expectations, Realizations, and Household Consumption Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 253-269, February.
    14. Chan Sewin & Stevens Ann H, 2004. "How Does Job Loss Affect the Timing of Retirement?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-26, May.
    15. F. Thomas Juster & Richard Suzman, 1995. "An Overview of the Health and Retirement Study," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30, pages 7-56.
    16. Rodriguez, E., 2001. "Keeping the unemployed healthy: The effect of means-tested and entitlement benefits in Britain, Germany, and the United States," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(9), pages 1403-1411.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Salm, Martin, 2009. "Does Job Loss Cause Ill Health?," IZA Discussion Papers 4147, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Salm, M, 2008. "Job loss does not cause ill health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/16, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Kuhn, Andreas & Lalive, Rafael & Zweimüller, Josef, 2009. "The public health costs of job loss," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1099-1115, December.
    4. Jan Marcus, 2014. "Does Job Loss Make You Smoke and Gain Weight?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(324), pages 626-648, October.
    5. Thomas Barnay, 2016. "Health, work and working conditions: a review of the European economic literature," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(6), pages 693-709, July.
    6. Everding, Jakob & Marcus, Jan, 2020. "The effect of unemployment on the smoking behavior of couples," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 154-170.
    7. Marcus, Jan, 2013. "The Effect of Unemployment on the Mental Health of Spouses – Evidence from plant closures in Germany," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 546-558.
    8. Been, J.; & Suari-Andreu, E.; & Knoef, M.;, 2022. "The short-run effects of unexpected job loss on health," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/21, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. 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.
    10. Jan Marcus;, 2012. "The effect of unemployment on the mental health of spouses - Evidence from plant closures in Germany," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 12/17, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Bassanini, Andrea & Caroli, Eve, 2014. "Is work bad for health? The role of constraint vs choice," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 1402, CEPREMAP.
    12. Lídia Farré & Francesco Fasani & Hannes Mueller, 2018. "Feeling useless: the effect of unemployment on mental health in the Great Recession," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-34, December.
    13. Marcus Eliason, 2012. "Lost jobs, broken marriages," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1365-1397, October.
    14. repec:zbw:rwirep:0234 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Thomas Barnay & François Legendre, 2012. "Simultaneous causality between health status and employment status within the population aged 30-59 in France," Working Papers halshs-00856217, HAL.
    16. Andreas KUHN & Rafael LALIVE & Josef ZWEIMÜLLER, 2007. "The Public Health Costs of Unemployment," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 07.08, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    17. Matthias Keese & Hendrik Schmitz, 2014. "Broke, Ill, and Obese: Is There an Effect of Household Debt on Health?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 525-541, September.
    18. Thomas Leoni, 2010. "Differences in Sick Leave Between Employed and Unemployed Workers. What Do They Tell Us About the Health Dimension of Unemployment?," WIFO Working Papers 372, WIFO.
    19. Johannes Stauder, 2019. "Unemployment, unemployment duration, and health: selection or causation?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(1), pages 59-73, February.
    20. Schröder, Mathis, 2013. "Jobless Now, Sick Later? Investigating the Long-term Consequences of Involuntary Job Loss on Health," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(1), pages 5-15.
    21. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12483 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Nikolova, Milena, 2018. "Self-Employment Can Be Good for Your Health," GLO Discussion Paper Series 226, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:18:y:2009:i:9:p:1075-1089. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.