Unemployment can be deadly

Nov 29 2004

Being unemployed can up your risk for an early death, according to study of 875 female and 1,309 male twins.

Women in the study who had ever faced unemployment were almost three times as likely to commit suicide as those with steady jobs, and for men, the researchers found a strong association with unemployment and increased (death) risk of death from external undetermined causes.

For women study participants, smoking, use of alcohol, use of tranquilizers, illness and (poverty were 10 percent)low socioeconomic status were more prevalent among those who had ever been unemployed. The men who had been unemployed were more likely to be unmarried, have introverted personalities, suffer long-term illnesses and (be poor) low socioeconomic status than those who had never faced unemployment. Both men and women in the study who had ever been unemployed were also more likely to be divorced. Yet even when researchers made adjustments to socioeconomic status and other factors that could affect a person's ability to work, unemployment still was a strong indicator of early death.