Unemployment and health in Spain during the 2008's financial crises

The main objective of this paper is to examine the contribution of the high unemployment rate on the health status of society during and after the 2008 global financial crisis in Spain. Secondary household survey data from the European Union database (EU_SLIC) for 2008 and 2014 was used for the descriptive and inferential statistics. The two years are chosen purposely since 2008 was the year that the global financial crisis began, and 2014 was the year that the unemployment rate was very high and Spain's economy was starting to revive from the crisis. Ordered Probit regression is used for inferential statistics since the dependent variable (General Health Status) is an ordered variable and basic activity status (with four categorical variables), the capacity to face unexpected financial expenses (with two dummy variables), household disposable income and pollution, crime or other environmental problems (with two dummy variables) are used as explanatory variables. Based on the descriptive and inferential statistics results, even if there was a high increment of unemployment during the financial crises and even if the unemployment rate was at its pick level in 2014, the effect of unemployment on the general health of the household was not as high as expected compared with its effect in 2008. Keeping other things constant, the probability of very good and good health is increasing as the capacity to face unexpected financial expenses and household income increases; but it decreases as the probability of being unemployed, retired, inactive and pollution increases both in 2008 and 2014. On the other hand, the probability of fair, bad and very bad health status increases as the probability of being unemployed, retired, inactive and pollution increases but decreases as the capacity to face unexpected financial expenses and household income increases both in 2008 and 2014.