The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates / Francesco Bianchi, Giada Bianchi, Dongho Song.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bianchi, Francesco.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Bianchi, Giada.

Song, Dongho.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w28304.

NBER working paper series no. w28304

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

We adopt a time series approach to investigate the historical relation between unemployment, life expectancy, and mortality rates. We fit Vector-autoregressions for the overall US population and for groups identified based on gender and race. We use our results to assess the long-run effects of the COVID-19 economic recession on mortality and life expectancy. We estimate the size of the COVID-19-related unemployment shock to be between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock, depending on race and gender, resulting in a significant increase in mortality rates and drop in life expectancy. We also predict that the shock will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, over a short horizon, while the effects for white men will unfold over longer horizons. These figures translate in more than 0.8 million additional deaths over the next 15 years.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2020.