The Effects of Youth Unemployment on Later Life Mental Health

2008年的金融危机导致全球青年失业率上升。在英国，这一比例仍高于危机前的水平。大量证据表明，失业对心理健康有负面影响。研究还表明，这种负面影响比失业本身持续的时间更长。然而，很少有研究专门关注青年失业的影响。有理由相信，在青少年时期，失业对心理健康的短期和长期危害可能特别大。现有的研究着眼于青年失业的长期影响，特别是有一些缺陷，并留下了一些重要的问题没有得到解答。首先，这些研究并没有表明青年失业会导致未来的心理健康问题或如何导致。其次，他们没有考虑失业对青少年时期的不同影响。第三，他们没有评估对临近退休年龄的心理健康的影响。解决这些问题对于设计有效的政策都很重要。在这个项目中，我将使用一项长期的出生队列研究的数据和先进的统计技术来评估青年失业的经历是否会导致以后生活中的心理健康问题，如果会，是如何造成的。此外，我将研究青年失业是否会影响退休决定，以及是否有因素可以防止失业的有害影响。我还将使用其他队列研究的数据，看看这些发现是否适用于更广泛的地区。

The financial crisis of 2008 has seen youth unemployment figures rise worldwide. In the UK, these remain higher than their pre-crash level. A large body of evidence shows that unemployment has a negative impact on mental health. Research also shows that this negative impact lasts longer than the experience of unemployment itself. However, few studies have looked at the impact of youth unemployment specifically. There are reasons to believe that adolescence may be a period where unemployment is particularly harmful for mental health in the short- and long-term. Existing studies which look at the long term impact of youth unemployment specifically have a number of flaws and leave important questions unanswered. First, these studies do not show youth unemployment causes future mental health problems or how. Second, they do not look at whether unemployment has differing impacts over the adolescent period. Third, they do not assess the effect on mental health at ages close to retirement. Addressing each of these points is important for designing effective policy.In this project, I will use data from a long-running birth cohort study and advanced statistical techniques to assess whether experience of youth unemployment causes mental health problems in later life and, if so, how. Further, I will look at whether youth unemployment impacts on retirement decisions and whether there are factors which protect against the harmful effects of unemployment. I will also use data from other cohort studies to see if findings apply more widely.