The impact of temporary contracts on suicide rates

Treballs Finals del Màster d'Economia, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2019-2020, Tutor: Judit Vall CastellóAbstract Temporary contracts have a negative long-term impact on labour outcomes of low-skilled workers. Moreover, temporary contracts can present side effect on health outcomes. Using a restricted version of the Spanish Death Records, I estimate the impact of a liberalisation in the regulation of fixed-term contracts in 1984 on suicide rates. I exploit this natural experiment from a reform implemented in Spain using a cohort regression discontinuity design. I document a large long-term impact on suicides for high school first-level graduates, increasing the suicide mortality rates of the cohorts entering the labour market just after the reform by 26.6%. My results show the importance of identifying the contributing factors to suicide risk of vulnerable populations and have important policy implications for suicide prevention

The impact of temporary contracts on suicide rates

The number of suicides has increased in the last decades in several developed countries. For instance, Spain has experienced a gradual but steady increase in suicides since the 80's and it is currently the leading external cause of death in the country. At the same time, the dualisation of the labor market, with a strong and persistent incidence of temporary contracts, has increased the instability of employment conditions. Both developments have a stronger incidence for individuals with lower levels of education. Therefore, in this paper we use rich administrative data in order to estimate the impact of the wide spread use of temporary contracts on suicides. In order to do that we exploit a reform that liberalised the use of fix-term contracts in Spain in 1984. Our results show strong long-term effects of the reform, which increased the suicide mortality rate of affected cohorts (those entering the labor market just after the liberalisation) by at least 25.3%. We believe that this result has important policy implications and should be taken into account in the design of the national suicide prevention plans