TY - BOOK ID - 136583612 TI - The Long-Term Impact of the COVID-19 Unemployment Shock on Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates AU - Bianchi, Francesco. AU - Bianchi, Giada. AU - Song, Dongho. AU - National Bureau of Economic Research. PY - 2020 PB - Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research DB - UniCat UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:136583612 AB - 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. ER -