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We investigate whether employees with mental health disorders are likelier to be laid off during corporate downsizings. Our study uses nationwide administrative data from all private sector firms and their employees in Finland from 2001 to 2017 and focuses on firms with at least 20 employees that reduced their workforce by at least 20% over two consecutive years. We analyse whether the employees who were laid off had more diagnosed mental health disorders prior to downsizing compared than those who were not laid off. Controlling for employee characteristics, our baseline results show that a mental health disorder diagnosis in the 3 years before downsizing increases the likelihood of being laid off by about 6 percentage points. This highlights the increased vulnerability of employees with mental health disorders in mass layoff situations.

We study the effects of parental death on children’s mental health. Combining nationwide administrative data for Finnish citizens born between 1971 and 1986, we utilize an event study methodology to analyze hospitalization for mental health–related reasons by the age of 30. We find no clear evidence of increased hospitalization following the death of a parent of a different sex, but there are significant effects for boys losing their fathers and, to a lesser extent, girls losing their mothers. We analyze the effects in a country that has committed substantial financial resources to implement school health care for all pupils. In countries where such policies do not exist or where the coverage of primary health-care services in schools is not universal, the negative effects on mental health may arguably be even larger.

School grades in adolescence have been linked to later psychiatric outcomes, but large-scale nationwide studies across the spectrum of mental disorders are scarce. In the present study, we examined the risk of a wide array of mental disorders in adulthood, as well as the risk of comorbidity, associated with school achievement in adolescence. We used population-based cohort data comprising all individuals born in Finland over the period 1980–2000 (N= 1,070,880) who were followed from age 15 or 16 until a diagnosis of mental disorder, emigration, death, or December 2017, whichever came first. Final grade average from comprehensive school was the exposure, and the first diagnosed mental disorder in a secondary healthcare setting was the outcome. The risks were assessed with Cox proportional hazards models, stratified Cox proportional hazard models within strata of full-siblings, and multinomial regression models. The cumulative incidence of mental disorders was estimated using competing risks regression. Better school achievement was associated with a smaller risk of all subsequent mental disorders and comorbidity, except for eating disorders, where better school achievement was associated with a higher risk. The largest associations were observed between school achievement and substance use disorders. Overall, individuals with school achievement more than two standard deviations below average had an absolute risk of 39.6% of a later mental disorder diagnosis. By contrast, for individuals with school achievement more than two standard deviations above average, the absolute risk of a later mental disorder diagnosis was 15.7%. The results show that the largest mental health burden accumulates among those with the poorest school achievement in adolescence.

Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) is a multisystem disorder associated with, for example, a high risk for cancer, a variety of behavioral and cognitive deficits, low educational attainment and decreased income. We now examined the labor market participation of individuals with NF1. We analyzed the numbers of days of work, unemployment, and sickness allowance among 742 Finnish individuals with NF1 aged 20–59 years using nationwide register data from Statistics Finland and the Social Insurance Institution of Finland. The individuals with NF1 were compared with a control cohort of 8716 individuals matched with age, sex, and the area of residence. Individuals with NF1 had a significantly lower number of working days per year than the controls (rate ratio [RR] 0.93, 95% CI 0.91–0.95). Unemployment (RR 1.79, 95% CI 1.58–2.02), and sickness absence (RR 1.44, 95% CI 1.25–1.67) were more frequent in the NF1 than in the control group. The causes of sickness allowances were highly concordant with the previously reported morbidity profile of NF1 including neoplasms, cardiovascular disease, mental and behavioral diseases, and neurological diseases. In conclusion, NF1 significantly interferes with labor market participation viaboth unemployment and morbidity. Unemployment seems to cause more days of not working than sickness absence.

This study investigated whether individuals with neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) fare worse than individuals without NF1 in terms of economic well-being. NF1 is relatively common in the population and provides an informative case of a rare hereditary disease.

Background: Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals are regarded as the highly skilled labor force that fosters economic productivity, enterprise innovation, and international competitiveness of a country. This study aims to understand the genetic predisposition to STEM occupations and investigate its associations with regional economic performance. We conducted a genome-wide association study on the occupational choice of STEM jobs based on a sample of 178,976 participants from the UK Biobank database. Results: We identified two genetic loci significantly associated with participants’ STEM job choices: rs10048736 on chromosome 2 and rs12903858 on chromosome 15. The SNP heritability of STEM occupations was estimated to be 4.2%. We also found phenotypic and genetic evidence of assortative mating in STEM occupations. At the local authority level, we found that the average polygenic score of STEM is significantly and robustly associated with several metrics of regional economic performance. Conclusions: The current study expands our knowledge of the genetic basis of occupational choice and potential regional disparities in socioeconomic developments.

COVID-19-era lockdown policies resulted in many older persons entering unemployment, facing financial difficulties and social restrictions, and experiencing declining health. Employing the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe's first COVID-19 module (summer 2020) (N = 11,231) and the Karlson-Holm-Breen method for decomposition of effects within non-linear probability models (logistic regression modelling), we examined associations of pandemic-era lost work with older Europeans' (50–80 years of age) self-assessed health, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms, and mediation through households' difficulties making ends meet, loneliness, and curtailed face-to-face contact with non-relatives. We find that lost work was associated with detriments in all three health outcomes. Total mediation was 23% for worsened self-assessed health, 42% for depressive symptoms, and 23% for anxiety symptoms. In all cases, combined mediation through the two social activity variables was approximately twice the magnitude of mediation through household financial difficulties. This evidence highlights the extent of employment's value for friendship formation and sustenance, and social activity, during the pandemic-era social restrictions. This might be accentuated among older persons because of the social constrictions often concomitant to advancing age. These results emphasize that the social correlates of lost employment, beyond the financial concomitants, should receive thorough research and policy attention, perhaps especially for older adults during public health crises.

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The authors examine the role of employee job satisfaction in Finnish manufacturing plants over the period 1996–2001 to determine the extent to which it affects establishment-level productivity. Using matched data on job satisfaction from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) and information on establishment productivity from longitudinal register data linked to the ECHP, they estimate that the effect of an increase in the establishment's average level of employee job satisfaction on productivity is positive, but its magnitude varies depending on the specification of the model. The authors use an instrumental variables point estimate and find that an increase in the measure of job satisfaction by one within-plant standard deviation increases value-added per hours worked in manufacturing by 6.6%.

Following the French and Dutch "no" to the Constitution, the EU Directorate-General Communication commissioned a wide-ranging Special Eurobarometer on the subject of Europe's future. One of the main aims of the survey was to take stock of European people's expectations of different policies. In this article, we analyse EU citizens' viewpoints on the assignment of competence to EU level in matters of social affairs, gender equality and health. Specifically, we focus on country differences and individual characteristics that explain EU citizens' opinions about these issues. Furthermore, we are interested to study EU citizens' views about the harmonisation of social welfare systems within the European Union. This is a particularly interesting question because the harmonisation of social welfare systems is ruled out in EU treaties. For the Special Eurobarometer, almost 25,000 people were interviewed in the 25 EU Member States using the Eurobarometer survey methodology. The survey frame consists of those aged 15 years and over. A multi-stage, random (probability) sample design was applied in all Member States. In each country, a number of households were drawn with a probability proportional to the population size (for a total coverage of the country) and to population density. In each household, a respondent was drawn at random. All interviews were conducted face-to-face in people's homes by using the appropriate national language. We analyse EU citizens' responses to the assignment of competence and harmonisation by using probit and ordered probit models. There is considerable support among EU citizens for the view that more competence should be assigned to the EU level. In most EU member countries, the majority of the respondents favour the idea that more competence should be given to the EU level on the social dimension. However, the results reveal large country differences in notions about the assignment of competence to the EU level in matters of social affairs, gender equality and health. Citizens from Cyprus, Luxembourg and Belgium are most in favour of this particular idea. Approval of the assignment of competence to the EU level is also strong in Portugal. One explanation for this is that citizens in Portugal see the European Union as a vehicle for modernisation. In contrast, citizens from the UK, Estonia and Austria take the most negative stand on this issue. The most important individual characteristics that explain EU citizens' viewpoints about the strengthening of the social dimension are respondent's age and their opinions about the EU and globalisation. In matters of social affairs, gender equality and health, young people are substantially more inclined to assign competence to the EU level than older people. In addition, those who take a positive stand on the EU and/or globalisation are favourable to the idea of giving more competence to the EU level. Based on these results, it seems that EU citizens have accepted the idea that the European Union has a prominent role to play in strengthening the social dimension, because individual EU member countries are too small players in the global economy to wield any influence on these issues. Interestingly, young people take the most critical position on the harmonisation of social welfare systems within the European Union. Furthermore, those who view globalisation positively are also favourable to the idea of harmonising social welfare systems within the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine the relationship between early health status and financial decisions in adulthood, we link information on birth weight in 1966 from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort to data from the Finnish Central Securities Depository over the period of 1995–2010. We find that persons predisposed to poor health status in early childhood (indicated by low birth weight) avoid participating in the stock market in adulthood, with a 10% increase in birth weight associated with a 1.9% increase in probability of participation. The link between birth weight and stock market participation is partially channeled by poor early health status being associated with higher risk aversion. Early health status is not significantly related to risk taking in terms of the stock portfolio’s composition.

•We analyze the role of working conditions in employees’ retirement behavior.•We use two nationally representative cross-sectional surveys linked to register data.•Job dissatisfaction arising from adverse working conditions leads to intentions to retire.•Intentions to retire lead to actual retirement during the follow-up period.

This paper examines individuals’ health and whether it improves when individuals move from a region with poorer health on average to a region with better health on average. We used data from Finland, which is a country with large regional differences in health behaviours and outcomes. We found no evidence that moving from a less healthy region to a healthier region would have any significant effect on the health of individuals who move compared with the health of other individuals. We also examined the potential heterogeneity in the analysed relationships. We found evidence of a relationship between moving itself and health improvements, but this generally true only for our subsample of individuals who had only average or poorer health before moving.

This paper examines the relationship between health endowment and later-life outcomes in the labour market. The analysis is based on reduced-form models in which labour market outcomes are regressed on genetic variants related to the increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. We use linked Finnish data that have many strengths. Genetic risk scores constitute exogenous measures for health endowment, and accurate administrative tax records on earnings, employment and social income transfers provide a comprehensive account of an individual’s long-term performance in the labour market. The results show that although the direction of an effect is generally consistent with theoretical reasoning, the effects of health endowment on outcomes are statistically weak, and the hypothesis of no effect can be rejected only in one case: genetic endowment related to obesity influences male earnings and employment in prime age. Due to the sample size (N = 1651), the results should be interpreted with caution and should be confirmed in larger samples and in other institutional settings.