Unemployment and self-rated health in Ghana: are there gender differences?

Iddisah Sulemana, Ebenezer Bugri Anarfo and Louis Doabil

International Journal of Social Economics, 2019, vol. 46, issue 9, 1155-1170

Abstract: Purpose - A large extant literature examines the association between unemployment and self-rated health. Most of these studies reveal that unemployment diminishes self-rated health. Another strand of this literature, albeit sparse, suggests that the relationship between unemployment and self-rated health is gendered. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine whether unemployment is correlated with self-rated health in Ghana; and second, to explore whether and to what extent men differ from women on the basis of this relationship. Design/methodology/approach - The authors used data from the Wave 6 of World Values Survey in Ghana (n=1552) and probit and instrumental variable probit regressions to empirically examine the association between unemployment and self-rated health in Ghana. Findings - The results confirm that unemployment is negatively correlated with self-rated health among Ghanaians. Specifically, the unemployed are about 6.84–7.20 percent less likely to report good health status in a pooled sample. Further, after correcting for endogeneity, unemployed men are about 26.68 percent less likely to report good health. However, the association is not statistically significant for unemployed women. Originality/value - The study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence from Ghana.

Keywords: Ghana; Unemployment; Self-rated health; Gender differences; Self-reported health; E24; I18; J16; J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

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:eme:ijsepp:ijse-03-2018-0166

DOI: 10.1108/IJSE-03-2018-0166

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Social Economics is currently edited by Professor Terence Garrett

More articles in International Journal of Social Economics from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().