Employmentweb_low

EmpLoymEnT, work, And HEALTH inEquALiTiES - a global perspective
Job-seekers (Brazil).
source: © ilo/J. maillard (1988)
With the empirical evidence mapped out, revealing those areas
where unemployment is highest, we now take stock of the impact of
unemployment. although this problem has been studied for a long
time, scientific evidence has focused on two periods: economic crisis
and high unemployment. In the 30s, research focused mainly on workloss,
whereas in the 70s the focus was more on the non-economic
aspects of unemployment. These periods of investigation offer various
insights into the impact of unemployment. For instance, a classic study
by Marie Jahoda reveals important differences in patterns of reaction
to unemployment (Jahoda, lazarsfeld, & Zeisel, 1933). On the other
hand, an earlier Canadian study links unemployment to higher levels
of malnutrition, malnourishment, cardiovascular disease and anxiety
(Marsh, Fleming, & Blackler, 1938).
research at the aggregate level has shown that high levels of
unemployment, at both the national and local levels, are correlated with
poor health and increased mortality. Evidence demonstrates
that male unemployment correlates with deteriorated health
for wives as well as with child abuse. as unemployment
tends to hit already deprived groups (e.g., ethnic minorities
and migrants), there is a need for research into the
dimension of gender as well as of other power-related
mechanisms, such as social class and ethnicity
(Hammarström & Janlert 2005). Moreover, the influence of
context should be taken into account: a positive correlation
between trends of unemployment rates and suicide rates
was identified in both Japan (Inoue et al., 2007) and Hong
Kong (Chan, yip, Wong, & Chen, 2007), whereas reduction in
unemployment, a marker of economic growth in this case, predicted an
increase in CHD mortality in the US (ruhm, 2007).
What is clear is that the unemployed are excluded from social
participation and the health benefits that it brings. In fact, a study of
the EU-15 has identified unemployment as one of the ten most
important contributors to the total burden of disease in the 1990s
(Diderichsen, Dahlgren, & Vågerö, 1997). The problem is that it is very
difficult to rely on empirical investigation to demonstrate this
because, in those countries where unemployment is very high and the
informal sector typically quite large, official unemployment rates are
unlikely to be a true reflection of the realities of the labour market.
This means that in the end, it is quite difficult to study the relationship
between unemployment and health in the less developed areas of the
world (Gilmore, McKee, & rose, 2002), and more specifically in
countries which have severe economic and social crises, including
poverty and migratory processes (see Case study 18).
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