Unemployment and mental health scarring during the life course

Abstract

There are long-term mental health scarring effects of exposure to youth unemployment and multiple exposure to unemployment during the life course.

Youth unemployment and functional somatic symptoms in adulthood: results from the Northern Swedish cohort

“…4 Previous research on the same cohort has shown a significant association for both women and men between recent unemployment and several health measures, 29 and between youth unemployment and internalized mental health symptoms in adulthood. 9 In this study, there were no significant associations for women between youth unemployment and functional somatic symptoms, even though women tend to score higher than men on functional somatic symptoms.…”

“…27 Earlier analyses on our cohort showed long-term association of youth unemployment with mental health in adulthood. 9 These previous studies have only examined long-term unemployment (6 or 12 months of unemployment). Our study indicates that each month in youth unemployment is associated with a higher level of functional somatic symptoms in adulthood for men.…”

“…[6][7][8] There are also public health studies indicating that unemployment may lead to long-term mental health consequences and lowering of the long-term baseline of well-being. 9 A Swedish study on unemployment and ill-health in different age groups shows that unemployment spells during youth have stronger health implications than unemployment spells during early adulthood, particularly for poor psychological health and smoking, 10 indicating the need to further explore the relationship between youth unemployment and ill-health with longer follow-up times. 2 Young people entering the labour market are faced with special challenges.…”

The effect of an early-career involuntary job loss on later life health in Europe

“…1 A few previous studies on the long-term health consequences mostly examine the general population (Daly & Delaney, 2013;Schröder, 2013). However, recent evidence from long-run cohort studies suggests that young people may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of unemployment (Bell & Blanchflower, 2011;Strandh, Winefield, Nilsson, & Hammarström, 2014). There are a number of potential explanations for these findings.…”

“…2 Following recent interest in the mechanisms behind the negative long-term effects of job loss and unemployment on health (e.g. Strandh et al, 2014), we additionally examine how the subsequent unemployment risks and employment instability mediate this relationship. Although the previous empirical evidence is scarce (see Brydsten et al, 2015 for an exception), theoretically, a life course perspective is often employed arguing that initial disadvantages produce further relative disadvantages over time (e.g.…”