The unemployed often have more time to exercise.

With the country richer than ever, a health researcher insists that the means exist to mitigate the social cost of economic crisis.

An economic depression takes its toll on social well-being, but its effects on health are not unambiguous.

In some respects, a depression can even bring with it positive health effects. Researchers studying the impact of the 1990s depression on the Finnish population have observed that mass unemployment made possible an increase in exercise and a reduction in work-related stress. Alcohol consumption also remained low during this period, reports research professor Jussi Simpura from the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL).

The longer unemployment lasts, however, the more detrimental are its overall effects on human health.

“Worries over money and despair over one’s future provide new sources of stress,” Simpura says.

Stress can prove damaging to the entire family, not just the person experiencing it. Parents’ worries regarding income are usually perceived by children and young people, and this sense of tension can easily compromise the mental well-being of all family members.

Simpura points out that redundancy also results in a sharp curtailment of access to health services, as more generous and comprehensive work-based health schemes give way to reliance on public sector provision.

Nevertheless, the most hard hit in recessionary times are those who never make the transition back into the labour market. A depression cuts people off from familiar routines and environments and limits their means to participate in society and express themselves. Long-term unemployment also tends to weaken social contacts and relationships.

At a seminar held 25 May, Simpura compared Finland’s experience during the 1990s depression with conditions today, and wondered aloud how the country’s health and welfare services would survive the current economic crisis.

“In developing the infrastructure of a social safety net, it doesn’t really seem that the architects ever have economically extreme conditions in mind,” he says.

The current government has less room to cut spending on social and health services than that available to Finnish governments during the 1990s, since funding levels for many of those services were never restored as the economy improved.

But Finland is wealthier than it has ever been, so the fundamentals for surviving the current crisis in social welfare terms should be stronger than last time, Simpura argues.

Heta Lievonen – STT
Matthew Parry – HT
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