The effect of job loss and unemployment duration on suicide risk in the United States: a new look using mass‐layoffs and unemployment duration

Timothy J. Classen and Richard Dunn

Health Economics, 2012, vol. 21, issue 3, 338-350

Abstract: We examine the link between employment status and suicide risk using a panel of US states from 1996 to 2005 with monthly data on suicides, the duration of unemployment spells and the number of job losses associated with mass‐layoff events. The use of aggregate data at the monthly level along with the distribution of unemployment duration allows us to separate the effect of job loss from the effect of unemployment duration, an important distinction for policy purposes, especially for the timing of potential interventions. Our results are consistent with unemployment duration being the dominant force in the relationship between job loss and suicide. Nevertheless, mass‐layoffs may be powerful localized events where suicide risk increases shortly afterward. Implications for the design of unemployment insurance are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1719

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:wly:hlthec:v:21:y:2012:i:3:p:338-350

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().