Long-term Health Consequences of Adverse Labor Market Conditions at Time of Leaving Education: Evidence from West German Panel Data

Abstract

Using longitudinal survey data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study ( N = 3,003 respondents with 22,165 individual-year observations) and exploiting temporal and regional variation in state-level unemployment rates in West Germany, we explore differences in trajectories of individuals' self-rated health over a period of up to 23 years after leaving education under different regional labor market conditions. We find evidence for immediate positive effects of contextual unemployment when leaving education on individuals' health. We find no evidence for generally accelerated or decelerated health deterioration when leaving education in high-unemployment contexts. We find, however, that individual unemployment experience when leaving education is associated with worse health and with more accelerated health deterioration in high-unemployment contexts. The cumulative experience of unemployment after leaving education does not mediate the influence of early labor market experiences for long-term health outcomes. In addition, our analyses indicate no gender differences in these results.

Longitudinal Trends in Self-Rated Health During Times of Economic Uncertainty in Italy

“…The explanation for this may be the higher mortality and non-responses rates among the participants with the poorest self-rated health (Andersen et al, 2007) and the compensatory mechanisms within individuals' social capital networks to face adverse events such as unemployment (Piumatti, 2016;Piumatti et al, 2018b;Saltkjel et al, 2017). Previous studies have in fact reported that while at the overall country level we may observe stable or positive trends in SRH during time of crisis even in the most affected regions, contrasted trends in health outcomes may still take place across specific portions of the population (Clause-Verdreau et al, 2018;Lersch et al, 2018;Saltkjel et al, 2017).…”

The Roles of Adolescent Occupational Expectations and Preparation in Adult Suicide and Drug Poisoning Deaths within a Shifting Labor Market

“…Most arguments suggest that the economy played a crucial role (Case and Deaton 2017) because recent labor market shifts decreased the value and availability of the blue-collar jobs that once supported middle-class lifestyles among men without a college degree. Indeed, work is an important contributor to mental and physical health through both the ability to find good, steady work (Lersch, Jacob, and Hank 2018) and the types of benefits, hours, pay, and responsibilities one has within a job (De Moortel et al 2017;Mirowsky and Ross 2007;Schneider and Harknett 2019). Labor market shifts over the past few decades increased inequality (Dwyer 2013;Mouw and Kalleberg 2010), job precarity (Kalleberg 2009), and physical and mental health problems, which may feed into feelings of hopelessness and despair (Goldman, Glei, and Weinstein 2018) that increase vulnerability to suicide and drug poisoning deaths (Durkheim [1897(Durkheim [ ] 1951.…”