The effect of job loss on body weight during an economic collapse

Sif Jónsdóttir and Tinna Ásgeirsdóttir ()

The European Journal of Health Economics, 2014, vol. 15, issue 6, 567-576

Abstract: Studies on the relationship between unemployment and body weight show a positive relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and unemployment at the individual level, while aggregate unemployment is negatively related to a population’s average BMI. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between job loss and changes in body weight following the Icelandic economic collapse of 2008. The analysis relies on a health and lifestyle survey “Heilsa og líðan”, carried out by The Public Health Institute of Iceland in the years 2007 and 2009. The sample is a stratified random sample of 9,807 Icelanders between the ages of 18 and 79, with a net response rate of 42.1 % for individuals responding in both waves. A linear regression model was used when estimating the relationship between job loss following the economic collapse and changes in body weight. Family income and mental health were explored as mediators. Point estimates indicated that both men and women gain less weight in the event of a job loss relative to those who retained their employment. The coefficients of job loss were only statistically significant for females, but not in the male population. The results from all three models were inconsistent with results from other studies where job loss has been found to increase body weight. However, body weight has been shown to be procyclical, and the fact that the data used were gathered during a severe economic downturn might separate these results from earlier findings. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Keywords: Body weight; Unemployment; Recessions; Business cycles; I10; I12; I15; E32; J23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10198-013-0494-z (text/html)
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:spr:eujhec:v:15:y:2014:i:6:p:567-576

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10198/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10198-013-0494-z

Access Statistics for this article

The European Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J.-M.G.v.d. Schulenburg

More articles in The European Journal of Health Economics from Springer, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().