School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland; Labour Institute for Economic Research, Arkadiankatu 7 (Economicum), FI-00100 Helsinki, Finland; IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Schaumburg-Lippe-Strasse 5-9, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, FI-40014 Jyväskylä, Finland.
Drug Alcohol Depend. 2021 Oct 1;227:108967. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2021.108967. Epub 2021 Aug 28.
The secular decline in labor market participation and the concurrent increase in opioid use in many developed countries have sparked a policy debate on the possible connection between these two trends. We examined whether the use of prescription opioids was connected to labor market outcomes relating to participation, employment and unemployment among the Finnish population.
The working-age population (aged 19-64 years) living in Finland during the period 1995-2016 was used in the analyses (consisting of 67 903 701 person-year observations). Lagged values of prescription opioid use per capita were used as the exposure. Instrumental variables (IV) estimation method was used to identify causal effects, where opioid use per capita for the elderly (65-95-year-old) was used as an instrument for the opioid use per capita for the working-age population of the same gender, education and region.
Increased opioid use led to worse labor market outcomes in the long run, with the effect size of 16 % and 20 %, compared to the standard deviation of the employment and participation rates. On the contrary, in the short run, increased opioid use had positive employment effects.
Policymakers should take the contradictory short- and long-term effects into account while considering regulation and monitoring of opioid use. Regulating and monitoring long-term prescription opioids is crucial for reducing their negative labor market consequences.
在许多发达国家，劳动力市场参与率的长期下降和阿片类药物使用的同期增加引发了一场关于这两种趋势之间可能存在联系的政策辩论。我们研究了处方类阿片类药物的使用是否与芬兰人口的参与率、就业率和失业率等劳动力市场结果有关。
在分析中使用了芬兰在 1995 年至 2016 年期间的劳动年龄人口（19-64 岁）（包括 67903701 人年观察）。人均处方类阿片类药物使用的滞后值被用作暴露。使用工具变量（IV）估计方法来确定因果效应，其中 65-95 岁老年人的人均阿片类药物使用被用作同性别、同教育程度和同地区劳动年龄人口的人均阿片类药物使用的工具变量。
从长期来看，阿片类药物使用的增加导致劳动力市场结果恶化，与就业率和参与率的标准差相比，其效应大小分别为 16%和 20%。相反，在短期内，阿片类药物使用增加对就业有积极影响。
政策制定者在考虑对阿片类药物使用的监管和监测时，应考虑到短期和长期的矛盾影响。规范和监测长期处方类阿片类药物对减少其对劳动力市场的负面影响至关重要。
