I spend all week working on economics, then kick off the weekend by volunteering/running at the local parkrun. You might not think this sounds hugely exciting, but it means I really enjoyed reading some new research that imaginatively brings the two together.
Parkrun involves a 5km run taking place each Saturday at more than 700 locations across the UK. The purpose is to get us exercising, but the bonus (because each runner’s speed is recorded) is a great dataset. The researchers’ cunning idea is to extract insights about how our health changes in response to shifts in the economic climate by examining how fast thousands of people ran each week between 2004 and 2020.
What effect do downturns (measured by higher unemployment) have? On average, the answer is none, but that average hides significant, offsetting impacts on different groups. In tougher economic times, people over 50 actually run faster. In contrast, young and middle-aged men (aged 20-49) and young women (20-29) go slower.
What’s going on? The authors suggest this reflects offsetting effects: higher unemployment lowers income, which will reduce fitness but also frees up time for more exercise.
They argue that the latter dominates for those closer to retirement (which is consistent with health generally improving when people retire) and the former for the younger types.
In some ways, this complex story reflects the wider literature on the impact of recessions on health – or deaths. Downturns mean fewer deaths from car crashes (higher unemployment means fewer car journeys) but more suicides. In the financial crisis, we ate more unhealthy food, but drank and smoked less.
The main conclusion? I’m adding a slower parkrun time to the reasons I don’t want the UK dipping into recession.
• Torsten Bell is chief executive of the Resolution Foundation. Read more at resolutionfoundation.org
