The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates

Francesco Bianchi, Giada Bianchi and Dongho Song

No 15605, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We adopt a time series approach to investigate the historical relation between unemployment, life expectancy, and mortality rates. We fit Vector-autoregressions for the overall US population and for groups identified based on gender and race. We use our results to assess the long-run effects of the COVID-19 economic recession on mortality and life expectancy. We estimate the size of the COVID-19-related unemployment shock to be between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock, depending on race and gender, resulting in a significant increase in mortality rates and drop in life expectancy. We also predict that the shock will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, over a short horizon, while the effects for white men will unfold over longer horizons. These figures translate in more than 0.8 million additional deaths over the next 15 years.

Keywords: Covid-19; Life expectancy; Mortality; Unemployment rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 E32 I14 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15605 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: The long-term impact of the COVID-19 unemployment shock on life expectancy and mortality rates (2023)
Working Paper: The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates (2020)
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:cpr:ceprdp:15605

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15605

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().