Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, University of Lódz, Lódz, Poland.
Lazarski University, Warsaw, and Coventry University, Coventry, UK.
Eur J Public Health. 2017 Dec 1;27(6):1038-1042. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckx180.
Disentangling the immediate effects of an unemployment shock from the long-run relationship has a strong theoretical rationale. Different economic and psychological forces are at play in the first moment and after prolonged unemployment. This study suggests a diverse impact of short- and long-run unemployment on suicides in liberal and social-democratic countries.
We take a macro-level perspective and simultaneously estimate the short- and long-run relationships between unemployment and suicide, along with the speed of convergence towards the long-run relationship after a shock, in a panel of 10 high-income countries. We also account for unemployment benefit spending, the share of the population aged 15-34, and the crisis effects.
In the liberal group of countries, only a long-run impact of unemployment on suicides is found to be significant (P = 0.010). In social-democratic countries, suicides are associated with initial changes in unemployment (P = 0.028), but the positive link fades over time and becomes insignificant in the long run. Further, crisis effects are a much stronger determinant of suicides in social-democratic countries. Once the broad welfare regime is controlled for, changes in unemployment-related spending do not matter for preventing suicides.
A generous welfare system seems efficient at preventing unemployment-related suicides in the long run, but societies in social-democratic countries might be less psychologically immune to sudden negative changes in their professional lives compared with people in liberal countries. Accounting for the different short- and long-run effects could thus improve our understanding of the unemployment-suicide link.
从理论上讲，厘清失业冲击的即时影响和长期关系具有很强的合理性。在失业的第一时间和长期失业后，起作用的是不同的经济和心理力量。本研究表明，短期和长期失业对自由和社会民主国家自杀的影响是不同的。
我们从宏观层面的角度出发，同时估计了 10 个高收入国家的面板数据中失业与自杀之间的短期和长期关系，以及在冲击后向长期关系收敛的速度。我们还考虑了失业救济支出、15-34 岁人口比例和危机的影响。
在自由国家组中，只有失业对自杀的长期影响被发现具有显著意义（P = 0.010）。在社会民主国家中，自杀与失业的初始变化有关（P = 0.028），但随着时间的推移，这种正相关关系逐渐减弱，长期来看变得不显著。此外，危机的影响是社会民主国家自杀的一个更强的决定因素。一旦控制了广泛的福利制度，与失业相关的支出变化对预防自杀就不再重要。
从长期来看，慷慨的福利制度似乎能有效地预防与失业相关的自杀，但与自由国家的人相比，社会民主国家的社会可能对其职业生涯中突然的负面变化的心理免疫力较低。因此，考虑到短期和长期影响的不同，可以提高我们对失业与自杀关系的理解。
