A surety of job and employment is something which immensely helps in improving one’s mental health, and well-being in general. According to a new study conducted in Sweden, a person worrying about unemployment and low wages has a high chance of dying prematurely. Let us take a look.
A study published by the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, titled, The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Reports, says that a person has a higher chance of dying prematurely if they are anxious and stressed over having no job security or are on low wage.
The study was conducted from 2005 to 2017 on 2,50,000 Swedish workers aged between 20 and 55. The first author of the study, Nuria Matilla-Santander, an assistant professor at the institute, said, “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.”
She explained, “Because of the methods we used, we can be relatively certain that the difference in mortality is due to the precariousness of employment rather than individual factors.” According to her, if the instability of employment is reduced in the labour market, it could help lower premature deaths in Sweden.
Theo Bodin, the assistant professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet, and the last author of the paper said, “This is the first study to show that changing from precarious employment to secure employment can reduce the risk of death.” He added, “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.”
If people can find stable employment, their premature death risk decreases by 20 per cent, according to the study. And if they remain in that employment for more than a decade, the risk of premature death is lowered by 30 per cent. The Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare funded the study.
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