The Effects of Unemployment Rate on Health Status of Chinese People

Abstract

Background: The aim of the study was to estimate the short-run and long-run effects of unemployment rate on health outcomes of Chinese population, which is under studied before.

Methods: The Chinese aggregate data was analyzed (provincial data from 1990-2011). The fixed effect model and infinite distributed lag model (IDL) were applied to analyze the data. It aimed to estimate the short-run and long-run association between unemployment rate and health status of population in China. The mortality was applied as an indicator for health outcomes of entire population.

Results: In the short run, when the unemployment rate was decreased by 1%, mortality will be reduced by approximately 4 % (P<0.01). In the long-run, mortality will be increased by 6.8% with increased unemployment rate of 1% (P <0.05).

Conclusion: The result in China demonstrated that the unemployment rate was positively associated with mortality. The result also showed that the increased unemployment rate has been harmful to health outcomes of population. It will be significant to reduce the unemployment rate for improving potential public health benefits in developing countries like China.