Early Unemployment Can Contribute to Adult Health Problems: Results from a Longitudinal Study of School Leavers

Overview

Journal J Epidemiol Community Health

Specialty Health Services

Date 2002 Jul 16

PMID 12118056

Citations 48

Authors

A Hammarstrom

U Janlert

Affiliations

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Abstract

Study Objective: To investigate the long term effects of early unemployment (a total of more than half a year of unemployment between the ages of 16 and 21) on health behaviour and psychological and somatic symptoms.

Design: A 14 year follow up of a cohort of school leavers was conducted from 1981 to 1995. Information was collected by questionnaires.

Setting: An industrial town in northern Sweden.

Participants: The original cohort was defined as all pupils in a middle sized municipality in the last year of compulsory school at age 16 (n=1083). The participants were followed up between the ages of 16 and 30. The analysis included 96% of the original sample, 547 men and 497 women

Main Results: After controlling for initial health behaviour and symptoms as well as for working class background and late unemployment, early unemployment among young men and women showed a significant explanatory effect on smoking, psychological symptoms and-among men only-somatic symptoms after a follow up of 14 years. No correlation was found between early unemployment and late excess alcohol consumption.

Conclusions: Early unemployment can contribute to adult health problems. Thus, youth unemployment constitutes a significant public health problem, which to a certain extent remains in adult age.

Citing Articles

How do labour market conditions explain the development of mental health over the life-course? a conceptual integration of the ecological model with life-course epidemiology in an integrative review of results from the Northern Swedish Cohort.

Hammarstrom A, Westerlund H, Janlert U, Virtanen P, Ziaei S, Ostergren P BMC Public Health. 2024; 24(1):1315.

PMID: 38750531 PMC: 11094982. DOI: 10.1186/s12889-024-18461-6.

Active labour market policies in emerging adulthood may act as a protective factor against future depressiveness: an analysis of the long-term trajectories of depressive symptoms in the Northern Swedish Cohort.

Virtanen P, Nummi T, Westerlund H, Ostergren P, Janlert U, Hammarstrom A Front Public Health. 2024; 12:1345034.

PMID: 38655526 PMC: 11035740. DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1345034.

Predictors of overload in parents of children with neuromuscular diseases.

Rodriguez A, Garcia M, Martinez O, Lopez-Paz J, Garcia I, Perez-Nunez P Front Neurol. 2024; 15:1349501.

PMID: 38585358 PMC: 10996859. DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1349501.

Why does youth unemployment lead to scarring of depressive symptoms in adulthood? The importance of early adulthood drinking.

Hammarstrom A, Bean C, Pingel R, Janlert U, Westerlund H, Ostergren P Scand J Public Health. 2023; 52(8):960-967.

PMID: 38153038 PMC: 11626840. DOI: 10.1177/14034948231208472.

Investigating the Role of Second Chance Schools and COVID-19 Pandemic on the Mental Health and Self-Image of Greek Adult Students.

Karakitsiou G, Plakias S, Kedraka K, Arvaniti A, Kokkotis C, Tsiakiri A Brain Sci. 2023; 13(8).

PMID: 37626559 PMC: 10452111. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13081203.

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