Joblessness Shortens Lifespan of Least Educated White Women, Research Says

[eridani]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/health/joblessness-shortens-lifespan-of-least-educated-white-women-research-says.html?pagewanted=print

Researchers have known for some time that life expectancy is declining for the country’s least educated white women, but they have not been able to explain why. A new study has found that the two factors most strongly associated with higher death rates were smoking and not having a job.

The aim of the study, which is being published Thursday in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior, was to explain the growing gap in mortality between white women without a high school diploma and those with a high school diploma or more.

The study found that the odds of dying for the least educated women were 37 percent greater than for their more educated peers in any given year in the period of 1997 to 2001. The odds had risen to 66 percent by the period of 2002 to 2006. The authors controlled for age.

The researchers used a health survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, drawing on data from about 47,000 women ages 45 to 84. The study weighed more than a dozen factors to see which were causing the divergence in mortality rates. Poverty, obesity, homeownership, marital status and alcohol consumption were among the factors investigated.

But they mattered little. As it turned out, smoking was important, as had long been established, but researchers were surprised that joblessness had a dramatic effect, even after controlling for factors that employment would have generated, like income and health insurance.

“What is it about employment that has this huge impact on mortality, beyond the material resources it brings?” said Jennifer Karas Montez, the study’s lead author, a researcher at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.

[Autumn Colors]

1. Gee.....

“What is it about employment that has this huge impact on mortality, beyond the material resources it brings?” said Jennifer Karas Montez, the study’s lead author, a researcher at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.

Uh ... let me take a guess here ..... stress?
Stress from uncertainty (will I have a roof over my head next week)?
Stress over finances/debts?
Stress over illness and no insurance?
Stress over how to feed one's family?

Gee, I can't imagine why joblessness might be a factor here ....

[susanna]

2. Yeah. Gee, I wonder... n/t

[DotGone]

3. And the stigma attached to being unemployed

As a person who has spent significant amounts of time unemployed, people treat you like you have the Plague when they find out your jobless. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy enough to swallow a few pills and a bottle of cheap vodka.

[Autumn Colors]

8. Yes absolutely ... stress and increasing sense of hopelessness (nt)

Last edited Fri May 31, 2013, 05:07 PM - Edit history (1)

[JI7]

4. the same doesn't apply to other women(and men) ?

[eridani]

5. Not as noticeably

Married people (either gender) are a support system, and two can live for not too much more than it costs to support one.

[HiPointDem]

6. it applies to everyone. it breaks up marriages. i guarantee, if the 'most educated' went through

Last edited Fri May 31, 2013, 07:40 AM - Edit history (1)

long periods of joblessness like the 'least educated' do, whether they are men or women, married or not, their health would suffer.

because that's what poverty & stigma does to people, to all people.

[SoCalDem]

7. yep.. housing is the largest expense that most people have monthly

Two (or more) can live under one roof..

When unemployed people do not have the resources to provide reliable shelter, everything else is from bad to worst