Physical Health and Mental Well-Being of Unemployed - Results of a Longitudinal Survey in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

In mid-November 1981 the “Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung” (IAB) of the Federal Institute of Labour took a sample of Germans who became unemployed at that time to interview them twice, in the initial phase of unemployment (after 5 – 6 weeks) and again about 1 1/2 years later (in the summer of 1983). At the time of the second oral interviews - covering for practical reasons only those 25 years or older, altogether 1 600 persons – 40 % of them were still or again registered as unemployed; we shall consider them as “long-term unemployed” (on average they had been out of work for 14 months since November 1981, though some of them had repeatedly become unemployed since then) and mainly compare them with those re-integrated into work at the same time (42 %). The rest at least temporarily had left the labour market (more or less voluntarily) with a pension (5 %), to stay at home (8 %) or for other reasons (5 %).