Does unemployment contribute to poorer health-related quality of life among Swedish adults?

Abstract

Background Previous studies have shown that unemployment has negative impacts on various aspects of health. However, little is known about the effect of unemployment on health-related quality of life. Our aim was to examine how unemployment impacts upon health-related quality of life among Swedish adults, and to investigate these effects on population subgroups defined by education level, marital status, previous health, and gender. Methods As part of a cross-sectional study, a questionnaire was sent to 2500 randomly selected individuals aged 20 to 64 years living in Sweden in 2016. The questionnaire included the EuroQol 5 dimensions (EQ-5D) instrument and was answered by 967 individuals (39%). Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) scores were derived from the EQ-5D responses. Of the respondents, 113 were unemployed and 724 were employed. We used inverse probability-weighted propensity scores in our analyses to estimate a risk difference. Gender, age, education level, marital status, and previous health were used as covariates in our analyses. Results There was a statistically significant lower QALY score by 0.096 points for the unemployed compared to the employed. There were also statistically significant more problems due to unemployment for usual activities (6.6% more), anxiety/depression (23.6% more), and EQ-5D’s Visual Analogue Scale (7.5 point lower score). Grouped analyses indicated a larger negative health effect from becoming unemployed for men, those who are married, and young individuals. Conclusions In our study, we show that the health deterioration from unemployment is likely to be large, as our estimated effect implies an almost 10% worse health (in absolute terms) from being unemployed compared to being employed. This further highlights that unemployment is a public health problem that needs more focus. Our study also raises further demands for determining for whom unemployment has the most negative effects and thus suggesting groups of individuals who are in greatest need for labor market measures. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-6825-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Comparison of inequity in health-related quality of life among unemployed and employed in China

“…This concluded that unemployment is associated with poor HRQOL. This is consistent with several reports that unemployed people more possible to have poorer HRQOL than the employed [20,25,40] . Specifically, it may be due to the fact that people experienced unemployment are deprived of these benefits (e.g.…”

“…It is with great consequence to prevent the unemployed from falling into long-term health and poverty, to improve the precise poverty alleviation policy and to promote the construction of healthy China. Despite many health measurement being used to assess the effect of unemployment on health, there is still not much knowledge about health-related quality of life [20] .…”

Cost-effectiveness of guideline-based stepped and collaborative care versus treatment as usual for patients with depression – a cluster-randomized trial

“…Despite potential cultural differences in preferences for health states between the German and the British population, we believe that the British value set is more useful to value health states in our sample. Additionally, we want to point out that using the British value set in a non-UK-based study is a frequently implemented approach [46][47][48][49].…”

Employability In A Portuguese Social Educators Sample

“…Employability and professional status are relevant factors in well-being and quality of life (Norström et al, 2019;Thern et al, 2017;Vancea & Utzet, 2016). However, research on the social educators' professional situation and employability is scarce, and no study on this subject has been found in Portugal.…”

“…In this sense, Bernston and Maklund (2007) found an association between perceived employability, general health and mental well-being. Unemployment and precariousness, on the other hand, seem to be associated with risk behaviors, lower quality of life rates and increased risks for mental health, like anxiety, depression and feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness (Norström et al, 2019;Thern et al, 2017;Vancea & Utzet, 2016). Therefore, unemployment and precariousness appear as important public health problems (Norström et al, 2019;Vancea & Utzet, 2016).…”