Health-related quality of life and socio-economic status of the unemployed

Abstract

Unemployment has a number of negative, economic, social and psychological effects on unemployed people and their families. Lowered household income leads to a constrained fulfilment of individual and collective needs, which has a significant impact on the quality of life and perceived health condition of the unemployed. The aim of this study is the identification of relationships between the quality of life and socio-economic status of unemployed persons. The study was carried out among 403 registered unemployed persons (246 women, 157 men) from Wrocław, Poland. The main method used in the study was the diagnostic questionnaire survey. Respondents’ quality of life was assessed using the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire, and their socio-economic status with author’s own S-ESQ questionnaire. Arithmetic means and standard deviation were calculated. Correlations between respondents’ quality of life and socio-economic status were checked with the Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance and Dunn’s post-hoc tests. The ex-ante level of statistical significance was set at α < 0.05. The mean health-related quality of life score of the unemployed respondents under study was higher than the mean perceived health condition score. As for the four quality of life domains, the respondents reported the highest scores in the social domain and psychological domain, followed by the physical and environmental domains. The analysis of mean scores of overall quality of life of the unemployed revealed statistically significant differences between groups of jobless Wrocław residents with regard to such factors as age, number of household members, and per capita income. Respondents’ age, education, marital status, persons per household, per capital income, and having savings were also significant differentiating factors of perceived health condition. The results of the study can be significant for public health policies in Poland and other countries at a similar level of economic development.