Unemployment and mortality in post-war Scotland

One of the more controversial topics in the literature examining the influence of unemployment on health is the hypothesised relation between unemployment and mortality. This paper presents a time series analysis of unemployment and mortality in post-war Scotland. Using a variety of model specifications and several measures of the age and duration structure of male unemployment, we find little evidence of a consistent association between unemployment and male mortality from all causes in different age cohorts. Unemployment, however, appeared to be more closely associated with variations in mortality rates and ischaemic heart disease, but the direction of effect was sensitive to the choice of maximum lag length between unemployment and mortality. There was also little evidence that per-capita real incomes or health expenditure exerted a significant influence on mortality. Our general findings and the methodological limitations of macro-studies of the relationship between unemployment and mortality highlight the importance of investigating the health consequences of unemployment using well controlled longitudinal studies of individuals.