WORK, we all know, can be both curse and blessing. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. And, as in certain other areas of life, living without can be more problematic. The impact of worklessness on health is known. But the impact of ill-health on the working economy also needs consideration.
Professor Ewan McDonald, of Glasgow University, warns of the need to keep people in work to avoid an unsustainable drain on the NHS. He suggests re-skilling older workers and urges more investment in rehabilitation for those keen on continuing to work.
His warning and suggestions should be heeded, particularly as our population ages. At all ages, ill-health comes at an obvious cost to the individual, which joblessness can exacerbate, but also to society, through pressure on health and welfare services and through skills and tax revenues being lost to the economy.
Such considerations don’t overshadow individual wellbeing but are intertwined with it. Being workless can affect status, personal worth and mortality. When ill health strikes, being workless can double the pain. It is important, therefore, to provide routes back into employment for those who want it, for the good of both individual and society.
An individual can live without work, but a society cannot live without workers and must provide the chance to rehabilitate or retrain all who would contribute.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here