Does Unemployment Affect Mortality?

Clementina Crocè

University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

International Economics and Global Markets
Professor Marina Murat

February 28, 2018

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Motivation

In the last decade, several countries have

faced a rise in unemployment due to the
2008 crisis.
Nowadays, unemployment still represents
a critical issue in both developed and
developing areas.
Unemployed individuals are more likely to
experience social exclusion and poverty,
therefore, in case of illness, it is more
difficult for them to recover.

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Economic literature
Previous economic studies find that:
Unemployment affects mortality:
«Inverse associations are found
between measures of
unemployment and indicators of
health.»
(Brenner and Mooney., 1983)
«Higher rates of unemployment
cause more illness and premature
deaths. Unemployment puts health
at risk and the risk is higher in
regions where unemployment is
widespread.»
(Wilkinson and Marmot, 2003)
Clementina Crocè Does Unemployment Affect Mortality?
Unemployment does not affect mortality:
«This paper provides a survey of these
studies and concludes that—contrary to
what is often claimed— Brenner’s
analyses do not provide convincing
evidence that the social costs of
unemployment include premature deaths.»
(Wagstaff, 1985)
Studies on the aggregate level do not
show a systematic relation between
unemployment and mortality on a societal
level.»
(Iversen, 2006)
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Table of contents

1 Data
Description and source
Descriptive statistics

2 Empirical strategy
3 Results
4 Conslusions

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Data

184 Countries

23 Years (1991-2013)

Dependent variable y: Mortality rate

Independent variable x: Unemployment rate

9 Control variables

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Data
Description and source

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Data
Descriptive statistics

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Empirical strategy

Yit = α + β1 Xit + ... + βn Xit + it

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Results
Scatterplot: Mortality rate (y) - Unemployment rate (x)

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Results
Model 1

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 4,229

Adjusted R-squared: 0.019

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.

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Results
Model 2

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 3,875

Adjusted R-squared: 0.241

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.

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Results
Model 3

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 3,871

Adjusted R-squared: 0.51

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.

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Results
Model 4

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 2,635

Adjusted R-squared: 0.62

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.
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Results
Model 5

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 1,243

Adjusted R-squared: 0.53

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.
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Results
Developed countries subsample

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 524

Adjusted R-squared: 0.71

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.

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Results
Developing countries subsample

Dependent variable: Mortality rate(%)

Observations: 2,126

Adjusted R-squared: 0.71

Temporal dummies and robust standard errors have been used.
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Results
Alternative way to show results

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Conclusions

Unemployment is never statistically significant.

→ Unemployment does not affect mortality, as Wagstaff (1985) and
Iversen (2006) found.

Food supply per capita and health expenditure per capita are robust,
but have an unexpected relationship (+) with mortality.
Further investigations:
Using more comprehensive data on education and political risk
Exploring non-linear relationship between mortality and development

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Appendix
Correlation matrix

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 Thank You for Your Attention

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