Unemployment causes ill health: The wrong track

Aubrey R. Kagan

Social Science & Medicine, 1987, vol. 25, issue 2, 217-218

Abstract: It is not unemployment per se that causes ill health. It can be a very desirable state. There are no diseases specific to unemployment. Contrast this with employment. Unemployment shares with all other socio-environmental situations risk of exposure to common physical social and psychological stressors that predispose to disease. Focus for action and research should be on reducing such stressors and not on provision of full employment. The former is likely to be possible and beneficial. The latter is likely to be impossible and carries a risk of making matters worse. As an immediate first step, that will reduce 'cratogenic' disease, people in authority should stop misleading the public into believing that unemployment is the cause of ill health.

Keywords: unemployment; physical; psycho-social; stressors; predisposing; factors; ill; health; cratogenic; disease (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1987
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(87)90393-5
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:25:y:1987:i:2:p:217-218

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().