Business cycles and mortality : results from Swedish microdata

• We assess the relationship between business cycles and mortality risk using a large individual level data set on over 40,000 individuals in Sweden who were followed for 10–16 years (leading to over 500,000 person-year observations). We test the effect of six alternative business cycle indicators on the mortality risk: the unemployment rate, the notification rate, the deviation from the GDP trend, the GDP change, the industry capacity utilization, and the industry confidence indicator. For men we find a significant countercyclical relationship between the business cycle and the mortality risk for four of the indicators and a non-significant effect for the other two indicators. For women we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no effect for any of the business cycle indicators.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Hälso- och sjukvårdsorganisation, hälsopolitik och hälsoekonomi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

ref (subject category)