Unemployed Scandinavian women in a poor state

If you are an unemployed Scandinavian woman, the findings of SINTEF sociologist Terje Andreas Eikemo and Clare Bambra of Durham University may depress you. They studied differences in self-perception of health by unemployed and working women and men in various parts of Europe. Generally speaking health problems were more common among unemployed persons than those in work.

But the greatest difference was found in Scandinavian women. The material analysed by the two researchers comes from the European Social Survey, one of the most comprehensive comparative population surveys carried out in Europe. Among the possible reasons for these results are that women are more likely than men to suffer from poor health when they are out of work, or that Scandinavia is a region in which women in poor health are more likely to lose their jobs than anyone else in Europe.