Bill Mitchell — Unemployment makes you sick

An interesting study published in The European Journal of Public Health recently November 2014) – Length of unemployment and health related outcomes: A life course analysis – provides fairly unambiguous evidence that the changes in labour markets under neo-liberalism towards higher entrenched unemployment rates, increased casualisation of work, the lockout of graduates and the widespread deskilling of the workforce are eroding the health outcomes of the population. While most studies of the link between unemployment and health have focused on cohorts that endure continuous long-term joblessness (unbroken spells exceeding 12 months), this study is novel because it studies whether accumulated spells of shorter-term unemployment over a person’s lifetime are detrimental to their health. The reason that is relevant is because under neo-liberalism, many individuals are forced to eke out an existence in low paid jobs interspersed with spells of unemployment. The evidence in the former case (continuous) long-term unemployment is clear – unemployment makes the person sick and they get sicker the longer they are unemployment (both physically and mentally). The new study shows that long-term unemployment generated over a person’s life through a series of accumulated spells of shorter-term unemployment also is bad for public health and well-being. It means that the emphasis on austerity which causes cyclical effects to be worse (entrenched mass unemployment) is bad but also the main structural bias in growth periods towards casualised, precarious work is also bad for our health.

The authors are Urban Janlert from Umeå University, Anthony H. Winefield from University of South Australia, Anne Hammarström from University of Adelaide. 

This is a study in the field of “Life-course epidemiology”, which according the authors “has emerged within the research on the development of social inequalities in health”.…

A consequence of  pursuing efficiency at the micro level of the firm results in social dysfunction and individual impairment as externalities inherent in the neoliberal model of capitalism.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog

Unemployment makes you sick

Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia