The relationship between unemployment and mortality in England and Wales is examined using data from the OPCS Longitudinal Study for the period 1971-1981. The authors extend a previous analysis conducted in 1984 in two ways. They first investigate whether the combination of regional differences in unemployment and in mortality could have contributed to [their] earlier findings of excess mortality among the unemployed. [They] then widen the scope of previous results by extending [their] analysis of mortality of wives of men seeking work to cover all women in households containing a man who was aged 15-64 and seeking work in 1971. (EXCERPT)