Unemployment as a Medical and Social Problem and Incidence among Unemployed Young People

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The problem of unemployment among young people worries the world for many generations, since young people are the stratum of the population on which the future in each country depends (Brydsten et al. 2016). The socioeconomic situation of young people, especially the unemployed, is alarming, which is not always emphasized in the priorities of social policy. The study of incidence among unemployed youth is carried out in many countries, where it is noted that the unemployed people have worse mental and physical health compared to employed one (Grzegorczyk and Wolff, 2020). AIM: Our study aims to assess the difference between the incidence of working and unemployed youth. METHODS: The study involved 536 people, from 18 to 29-years-old, among whom women - 69.2%, men - 30.8%, from all regions of Kazakhstan. RESULTS: The results of the work showed that the level of youth unemployment increased during the pandemic by an average of 1% in the world and in Kazakhstan, young people had limitations in receiving medical and social assistance due to financial constraints, deficiency of health insurance and personal reluctance. It was also found that social status is a significant predictor of vaccination (beta = −0.225, R2 = 0.0507, p < 0.001) and a predictor of alcohol consumption (beta = −0.0908, R2 = 0.00824, p = 0.037). More often unemployed youth noted health problems over the past year (42.3%) than in other social groups (35.6–37.8%), a similar situation was observed when assessing the frequency of chronic diseases (p = 0.365). CONCLUSION: In our study, we show that the decline in health by virtue of unemployment is likely to be significant, since our estimated effect implies that the health of young people is almost 10% worse (in absolute terms) due to unemployment compared to the employed population. This further underscores that unemployment is a public health problem that needs more attention. Furthermore, the results obtained show that unemployment has the most negative consequences for vulnerable people, including young people.