Low wages and job insecurity raise the risk of dying young, according to a study
The certainty of a job and work may significantly improve one’s mental health and overall wellbeing. A recent Swedish research found that worrying about unemployment and poor pay significantly increases the risk of dying young. Let’s look at it.
According to a research from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and published in The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Reports, a person’s risk of dying young increases if they experience anxiety and tension due to a lack of job stability or a poor income.
2,50,000 Swedish employees between the ages of 20 and 55 were the subject of the research between 2005 and 2017. Nuria Matilla-Santander, an assistant professor at the institute and the study’s first author, stated, “Using this large population database allowed us to take account of many factors that could influence morality, such as age, other diseases that workers can suffer from, or life changes like divorce.”
“We can be reasonably certain, based on the methods we used, that the difference in mortality is due to the precariousness of employment rather than individual factors,” she said. She asserts that decreasing job volatility in the labor market might aid in reducing the number of early deaths in Sweden.
“This is the first study to show that switching from precarious employment to secure employment can reduce the risk of death,” said Theo Bodin, assistant professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet and the paper’s final author. Continuing, he said, “It’s the same as saying that the risk of early death is higher if one keeps working in jobs without a secure employment contract.”
According to the research, people’s chance of dying prematurely falls by 20% if they are able to obtain permanent job. Additionally, the chance of early mortality is reduced by 30% if they stay in that job for more than ten years. The research was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life, and Welfare.
