A Critical View of the Unemployment and Health Debate

The major social change of the late 1970's and early 1980's in the U.K. has been the rise in unemployment to levels last experienced in the 1930's. Then as now, a vigorous debate has raged between the establishment and its critics over the possible health consequences of unemployment. The debate has many facets. The stress of redundancy and the stress of long term unemployment, may both be responsible for an increase in suicide and parasuicide. Poverty, apart from creating stress may affect living standards, in particular nutrition. Neonatal health may be particularly vulnera- ble. The evidence and arguments in these several areas is reviewed and the methodolo- gical problems of different study designs is discussed.