Unemployment and self‐assessed health: evidence from panel data

2008/06/05 by Petri Böckerman, Pekka Ilmakunnas · 1 citation
Health Professions · #Employment and Welfare Studies

paper · doi:10.1002/hec.1361

openalex publication_date 2008/06/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15

Abstract

We examine the relationship between unemployment and self-assessed health using the European Community Household Panel for Finland over the period 1996-2001. Our results show that the event of becoming unemployed does not matter as such for self-assessed health. The health status of those that end up being unemployed is lower than that of the continually employed. Therefore, persons who have poor health are being selected for the pool of the unemployed. This explains why, in a cross-section, unemployment is associated with poor self-assessed health. All in all, the cross-sectional negative relationship between unemployment and self-assessed health is not found longitudinally.

Citations

• Self-Rated Health and Mortality: A Review of Twenty-Seven Community Studies
• Evaluation Methods for Non‐Experimental Data
• SOME PRACTICAL GUIDANCE FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PROPENSITY SCORE MATCHING

Cited by

• The effects of parental unemployment on children's wellbeing – results from Switzerland and the United Kingdom

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