Austerity, precariousness, and the health status of Greek labour market participants: Retrospective cohort analysis of employed and unemployed persons in 2008–2009 and 2010–2011

Pepita Barlow, Aaron Reeves, Martin McKee, David Stuckler

Greece implemented the deepest austerity package in Europe during the Great Recession (from 2008), including reductions in severance pay and redundancy notice periods. To evaluate whether these measures worsened labour market participants' health status, we compared changes in self-reported health using two cohorts of employed individuals in Greece from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. During the initial recession (2008-2009) we found that self-reported health worsened both for those remaining in employment and those who lost jobs. Similarly, during the austerity programme (2010-2011) people who lost jobs experienced greater health declines. Importantly, individuals who remained employed in 2011 were also 25 per cent more likely to experience a health decline than in 2009. These harms appeared concentrated in people aged 45-54 who lost jobs. Our study moves beyond existing findings by demonstrating that austerity both exacerbates the negative health consequences of job loss and worsens the health of those still employed.Journal of Public Health Policy advance online publication, 20 August 2015; doi:10.1057/jphp.2015.25.