The Impact of Health Status on the Duration of Unemployment Spells and the Implications for Studies of the Impact of Unemployment on Health Status

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of health status on the duration of unemployment spells and finds that individuals with impaired health will have significantly longer unemployment spells. These longer unemployment spells will result in the stock of the unemployed being composed of a larger proportion of individuals with impaired health than the stock of the employed. Although this difference in composition between the stock of unemployed and stock of employed accounts for some of the difference in mortality rates, it cannot explain all of the difference observed in earlier studies.