New report reveals the surprising benefit to economic recessions: They help you live longer
A report led by Amy Finkelstein, the co-scientific director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) North America, and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found recessions help people live longer lives. Mortality rates among Americans dropped 0.5% for every 1% jump in an area’s unemployment rate during the Great Recession, according to the report. It also found the more unemployment in an area, the longer people lived—especially people older than 64 and those without a college degree. One of the key explanations it identified for a longer life was cleaner air, linked to recession-induced reductions in pollution.
On a broader level, the report begs the question: Is a better economy worth having a shorter life? And brings into consideration alternative economic models such as the de-growth model, an economic theory which advocates for the scaling back of production and consumption, which, it writes, can be “a purposeful strategy to stabilise economies and achieve social and ecological goals."
People face a mounting pile of problems in periods of economic downturn: Unemployment rates soar, home values drop, and people have less money to spend and delay important financial decisions like buying a house, getting married, or having kids. But research also shows that recessions come with a silver lining: more life.
A report from the National Bureau of Economic Research, led by health economist Amy Finkelstein, found mortality rates among Americans dropped 0.5% for every 1% jump in an area’s unemployment rate during the Great Recession. It also found the more unemployment in an area, the longer people lived—especially people older than 64 and those without a college degree.
And, as it turns out, the unlikely beneficiary of a recession is the environment: specifically, cleaner air.
“These mortality reductions appear immediately,” the report said, “and they persist for at least 10 years.”
Put into perspective, the economists found the Great Recession “provided one in 25 55-year-olds with an extra year of life.”
Additionally, the economists found “three-quarters of the mortality reduction comes from a reduction in elderly deaths, a group whom we estimate did not experience any direct income effects” from the Great Recession. That means most of the people who lived longer due to the recession were not directly financially impacted by it.