Employment and unemployment How does work affect our health?

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What's the association between employment rates and health?

What are the trends in unemployment and underemployment?

Which groups are most likely to be affected by unemployment?

What are the trends in long-term unemployment?

What is the geographical spread of unemployment and long-term unemployment?

What's the association between employment rates and health?

Higher healthy life expectancy is strongly correlated with higher employment rates, particularly for men. On average, for every 10 percentage points higher the employment rate, healthy life expectancy is around 5 years higher.

Why does this matter?

There is significant variation in both health and employment within and between local areas in the UK. Policies aimed at boosting employment can have important positive health impacts.

Discussion

This chart shows the association between employment rates and life expectancy (how many years we can expect to live) and healthy life expectancy (how many of those years are spent in good health). Each series highlights the local authority’s position in the multiple deprivation distribution: whether in the most deprived bottom 20%, the next 30%, or the top half.

• There is a clear relationship between employment and both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, although it is stronger for men than for women.
• The correlation also tends to be stronger for healthy life expectancy rather than total lifespan.
• An additional 10% of employment is associated with around 5 years of healthy life expectancy in this simple relationship.  
• There is a clear pattern with the most deprived fifth of local areas experience both the worst health and employment outcomes. However, a significant share of the 20-30% of most deprived local areas have above typical rates of employment but less than typical health outcomes. 
• Further analysis shows that the same relationships between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy with employment rates hold for unemployment rates and for inactivity rates.

Trends in unemployment and underemployment

Unemployment rates (people looking for work as a share of those both in and looking for work) have reached record lows in 2019 at only 2.7% in Q2 2019, but the proportion of people underemployed (wishing to work additional hours at the same pay rate) was nearly double the unemployment rate, at about 4.8% and above pre-recession levels.

Why does this matter? 

The UK's strong employment performance means that traditional concerns about the impact of unemployment, while still relevant in some areas, must also pay more attention to the risk and impact of underemployment. 

Discussion 

• Unemployment has declined following the 2009 recession and is now below its pre-recession levels at around 2.6% consistently reaching record lows.
• The proportion of people who wish to work additional hours has also declined from 6.1% in 2013 to 4.6% in 2019. However, the rate remains higher than its pre-recession levels and it is nearly double the unemployment rate. This is illustrative of the changing challenges in the UK labour market. 
• The evidence basis for underemployment having health consequences is weaker and less explored than for unemployment, although mental health consequences have been found, if inconsistently. Greater understanding of the impact of underemployment is necessary for what may be an increased feature of the UK labour market experience.

Which groups are most likely to be affected by unemployment?

There have been falls in unemployment for all age and ethnic groups presented, but inequalities still remain in similar patterns to five years earlier. 

Why does this matter? 

 A relatively strong labour market by itself has not been enough to eradicate inequalities in the experience of unemployment across different groups. 

Discussion 

Ethnicity 

The proportion of unemployment in each ethnic group has fallen between 2013-14 and 2018-19, reflecting improvements in the overall employment rate. Generally, unemployment fell the most for groups that had the highest unemployment five years earlier: for example, the proportion of Black/Black British adults, the group with the highest unemployment fell by 5.5 percentage points. This reflects that there was more scope for unemployment to improve for groups with higher original unemployment. Despite this improvement, there are still inequalities: the proportion of Black/Black British adults that were unemployed in 2018-19 was twice as high as the proportion of White British adults that were unemployed. Expressed as a ratio between these two groups, Black British unemployment was 2.3 times higher in 2013-14, falling only to 2.2 times higher five years later. The general improvement in the employment rate has therefore not been enough to reduce these inequalities, highlighting that a strong labour market by itself will not necessarily fix inequalities. 

Age 

Younger age groups are generally more likely to experience unemployment. 7.3% for 16-19 year olds, and 6.8% of 20-24 year olds are unemployed, compared to 3.3% for those aged 25-34. Unemployment is lower for older age groups, but this can reflect higher levels of economic inactivity rather than simply higher employment rates. Younger age groups experienced larger reductions in unemployment over this period: around five percentage points for those aged under 25, reflecting higher initial unemployment among these age groups.

What are the trends in long-term unemployment?

Unemployment and long-term unemployment are both at low levels. 1.3 million people were unemployed, the lowest on this time series, with 60% employed less than six months. 

Why does this matter? 

While unemployment has traditionally been a concern from a health perspective, it is at historically low levels. There are more people on potentially insecure contracts (2.4m) than are unemployed (1.3m). This should influence the priorities of central and local governments. 

Discussion 

The number of people unemployed in the UK was at 1.3 million in the first quarter of 2019, down 80,000 on the 2018 and the eight consecutive year to see a fall in the total number of unemployed people. This is the lowest level of unemployment recorded in the time series of this data source. 59% of the unemployed had been so for less than six months, which is still a lower share than before the recession.  

350,000 adults or 24% of the total had been unemployed for over 12 months. This is the lowest since before the recession.  

Although this cannot be taken as evidence that unemployment and its health consequences have been “solved”, it does appear that as a relative public policy problem it is relatively diminished and a greater focus should be on work quality and progression.  

It is also possible that unemployment could return as a major public policy issue, if there is a recession and no major decline in sterling, which has been historically associated with lower unemployment increases in downturns.

What is the geographical spread of unemployment and long-term unemployment?

Unemployment and long-term unemployment are both at low levels.

Why does this matter? 

Inequalities in unemployment have softened in the employment recovery since the recession but persist. Some areas have higher unemployment than before the recession.  

Discussion 

These maps look at Great Britain in three time periods: before, during, and after the recession at the end of the last decade, showing the proportion of the working-age population who are unemployed in each local authority. Unemployment in 2018/19 is lower than the previous pre-recession peak for Great Britain overall, as well as for most local authorities. For the 199 local authorities with consistently available data, 151 have lower unemployment than in 2006/07.  

There have also been changes in the distribution of areas of high unemployment over this period. Some local authorities that were middle-ranking for unemployment before the recession are now ranked the worst. Most of these authorities are towns in the north or midlands: Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Wolverhampton, and Doncaster, for example. These areas generally do not have higher unemployment than before the recession but have not experienced the same improvements. 

Although not uniform, another change relative to the pre-recession distribution of unemployment is in London. Only three London boroughs had unemployment over 5.2% in 2018/19, compared to a majority in 2006/07. Other large city local authorities such as Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester council areas have also experienced improvements relative to their pre-recession relative positions.