A longitudinal analysis of the effect of unemployment on health

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between health and unemployment on individual panel data for the Czech Republic between 2008 and 2011. Foreign research comes up with two possible directions: that unemployment worsens health and that for people with poor health it is more difficult to find jobs, the healthy worker effect. In many models based on representative data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions, it has been verified that unemployment actually worsens health. Conversely, healthy worker effect could not be verified. Finally, it was found that the relationship from unemployment to poorer health is greater among men than women.