Recession has many benefits too

Recessions (rather than booms or depressions) might be a blessing in disguise, says The Times, London. During economic crises, people tend to drink less, smoke fewer cigarettes and lose weight. They enrol in higher education, the air is cleaner, the roads are less crowded.

Alice Thomson says in the feature: “During the past 10 years of boom, a small, rather Eeyorish, group of American economists and psychologists has been trying to work out whether people really are better off in what Gordon Brown once called ‘the Golden Years’ and now refers to as the ‘Age of Irresponsibility’.”

Research by Stanford University and the University of North Carolina shows that when times are good, people of all classes tend not to take care of themselves and their families. They drink too much, and eat more fat-laden food. In downturns, people spend more time with their relatives and are more likely to look after their children themselves rather than depending upon after-school activities or creches.

The story quotes Grant Miller, an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, as saying that in a boom people work longer, harder hours, and are less likely to do things that are good for them. So “cooking at home and exercising are seen as a waste of time”. But when wages drop, and jobs are scarce, the young feel that it makes more economic sense to prolong their education, and the elderly will retire earlier since there is less incentive to keep earning.

Christopher Ruhm, professor of economics at the University of North Carolina, analysed death rates from 1972 to 1991, comparing them to economic shifts. He found that for every 1% increase in unemployment rates, there was a 0.5% decline in the death rate. People not only eat more healthily in recessions but they tend to drive less, either as an economy measure or because they are no longer commuting to their jobs. When unemployment rates rise by a point, the number of fatal car crashes decreases by 2.4%.

“People who are worried about losing their jobs do things that keep them from getting laid off — they drink less and take fewer risks,” says Ralph Catalano, professor of public health at the University of California. Also, in the past six months, councils have reported increased use of libraries and a fall in quantities of household rubbish.