 The health effects of leaving school in a bad economyJournal of Health Economics, 2013, vol. 32, issue 5, 951-964 Abstract: This study investigates the lasting health effects of leaving school in a bad economy. Three empirical patterns motivate this study: Leaving school in a bad economy has persistent and negative career effects, career and health outcomes are correlated, and fluctuations in contemporaneous economic conditions affect health in the short-run. I draw data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Age 40 Health Supplement. Members of my sample left school between 1976 and 1992. I find that men who left school when the school-leaving state unemployment rate was high have worse health at age 40 than otherwise similar men, while leaving school in a bad economy lowers depressive symptoms at age 40 among women. A 1 percentage point increase in the school-leaving state unemployment rate leads to a 0.5% to 18% reduction in the measured health outcomes among men and a 6% improvement in depressive symptoms among women. Keywords: Mental health; Physical health; School-leaving; Macroeconomic fluctuations (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:32:y:2013:i:5:p:951-964 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2013.07.003 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier |
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