Study links unemployment to suicide, early death

Men and women who've ever dealt with unemployment may have a heightened risk of dying early, particularly from suicide and injuries, a Swedish study suggests.

Among more than 20,600 men and women in a long-running study of twins, those who at the outset said they had ever been unemployed were more likely than their consistently working peers to die over the next 10 to 24 years.

In particular, the risk of suicide was elevated among women who had ever been unemployed, while for men, there was an increased risk of death from injuries of "undetermined cause" - at least some of which could have been suicides.

These higher death risks, according to the study authors, could not be fully explained by factors such as age, poverty, serious illness, and drinking and smoking habits at the study's start, although low income and health problems were more common among the unemployed.

The researchers, led by Dr. Margaretha Voss of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, report the findings in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

In previous research, Voss and her colleagues had found a higher risk of early death (before age 70) among men and women who'd ever faced unemployment. The new findings point up specific causes.

Though relatively few women committed suicide during the study period, the risk was about three to four times higher among those who had ever been unemployed. And in general, these women had a higher risk of death from injury, poisoning or some other "external" cause, which in some cases could not be judged accidental or intentional.

For men, unemployment was not tied to a higher risk of suicide specifically, but was related to a heightened risk of death from an undetermined external cause. This raises the possibility, Voss and her colleagues note, that suicide is less likely to be recognized in men than in women.

There was also some weaker evidence linking unemployment to deaths from cancer and alcohol-related diseases among men, according to the report.

The researchers lacked data on how many times and for how long each unemployed study participant was out of work, so it's unclear how the extent of a person's unemployment factors into the risk of premature death.

Still, Voss and her colleagues conclude that a lack of work may have "an important impact on mental health."

"Unemployment," they write, "may cause a deterioration of economic situation, downgrading of social status, broken social relations, changed risk behaviors, impaired psychological well-being, and Depression, consequences that may develop into severe illness."

SOURCE: American Journal of Public Health, December 2004.