IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cpp/issued/v42y2016i2p115-131.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic Insecurity and the Weight Gain of Canadian Adults: A Natural Experiment Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Barry Watson
  • Lars Osberg
  • Shelley Phipps

Abstract

Using four cycles of longitudinal National Population Health Survey (NPHS) data from 1994 to 2001, we examine whether increasing economic insecurity causes weight gain and obesity. In July 1996, Bill C-12 reduced Canadian unemployment insurance benefits considerably, arguably increasing the economic insecurity of Canadians exposed to unemployment risk. Using a difference-in-difference methodology, this paper compares the change in weight gain of adults 25 to 64 before and after this policy shift. For poorly educated males, the onset of unemployment in the post-policy change era is predicted to increase their body mass index (BMI) by 3.2 points.

Suggested Citation

  • Barry Watson & Lars Osberg & Shelley Phipps, 2016. "Economic Insecurity and the Weight Gain of Canadian Adults: A Natural Experiment Approach," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 42(2), pages 115-131, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:42:y:2016:i:2:p:115-131
    DOI: 10.3138/cpp.2015-064
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2015-064
    Download Restriction: access restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3138/cpp.2015-064?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lars Osberg, 2021. "Economic Insecurity and Well-being," Working Papers daleconwp2021-01, Dalhousie University, Department of Economics.
    2. Kong, Nancy & Phipps, Shelley & Watson, Barry, 2021. "Parental economic insecurity and child health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    3. Trenton G. Smith & Steven Stillman & Stuart Craig, 2024. "“Rational overeating” in a feast‐or‐famine world: Economic insecurity and the obesity epidemic," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 90(3), pages 634-655, January.
    4. Nancy Kong & Lars Osberg & Weina Zhou, 2018. "The Shattered “Iron Rice Bowl”— Intergenerational Effects of Economic Insecurity During Chinese State- Owned Enterprise Reform," Working Papers daleconwp2018-01, Dalhousie University, Department of Economics.
    5. Işıl Şirin Selçuk & Altuğ Murat Köktaş & Şükrü Anıl Toygar, 2023. "Socioeconomic factors affecting the probability of obesity: evidence from a nationwide survey in Turkey," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 239-255, February.
    6. Watson, Barry & Daley, Angela & Rohde, Nicholas & Osberg, Lars, 2020. "Blown off-course? Weight gain among the economically insecure during the great recession," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Watson, Barry & Osberg, Lars, 2017. "Healing and/or breaking? The mental health implications of repeated economic insecurity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 119-127.
    8. Lars Osberg, 2018. "Full Employment in Canada in the early 21st Century," Working Papers daleconwp2018-02, Dalhousie University, Department of Economics.
    9. Kong, Nancy & Osberg, Lars & Zhou, Weina, 2019. "The shattered “Iron Rice Bowl”: Intergenerational effects of Chinese State-Owned Enterprise reform," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:42:y:2016:i:2:p:115-131. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Iver Chong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.utpjournals.press/loi/cpp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.