The Effect of Unemployment on Health in Russia: a Systematic Literature Review (2015‑2023)

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The influence of unemployment on health is widely discussed in the economic literature. However, the question about the negative direct effect or the deterioration of health of the unemployed population remains open in the context of the existence of a reverse effect — the influence of health on employment. This study aims to assess the statistical associations between unemployment and health status, as well as to identify direct and reverse effects in this relationship in the Russian studies. The authors use a systematic literature review as the main research method. The search is conducted in Elibrary, Cyberleninka and Google Scholar databases to find published works on the research topic in 2015-2023 for men and women of working age. The full-text search identified fifteen publications that were included in the systematic review. The selected papers used self-rated health, mental health, cardiovascular health, and general well-being as health indicators. All studies confirmed the presence of statistically significant negative associations between the “unemployed” status and health. At the same time, employed respondents of both sexes reported good health one and a half times more often than unemployed individuals. Nine studies presented econometric models linking the labor market status variables to health. Of these, only one paper estimated direct and reverse effects for a mental health variable. There was no direct effect estimate for the self-rated health. This gap in the literature will be addressed by the authors in their next article using the matching method. If the assessment of the direct effect is negative, the authors plan to develop a series of policy recommendations to improve the health of unemployed and economically inactive individuals at the regional and federal levels. Due to the innovative approach, this study is of a great value to the research in health economics.