I study the impact of breast cancer on earnings, employment, and mental health among Finnish women, specifically examining whether there is a heterogeneous impact according to socioeconomic status. In addition, the contribution of the article lies in investigating the extent to which mental health problems mediate the impact on earnings and employment, and how efficiently social insurance system protects individuals from income loss due to sickness. The empirical analyses are based on unique register data including the total population of Finland from 2000 to 2016. As an identification strategy, the exact timing of cancer diagnosis is used. The results are based on difference-in-differences estimations. Breast cancer has an overall impact of –5.1 percent on annual earnings with significant differences between earnings quintiles: the negative impact in the second earnings quintile is the largest, –8.9 percent. Results hold when using other socioeconomic variables, while the impact is bigger when we include women with weaker labor market attachment to the analysis. Mental health problems mediate the impact only modestly. The negative effect is smaller when looking at total income highlighting the importance of the Finnish welfare state to buffer effects of ill health on economic well-being.

我研究了乳腺癌对芬兰女性收入，就业和心理健康的影响，特别是根据社会经济状况来检查是否存在异质性影响。此外，本文的贡献在于调查心理健康问题在多大程度上介导了对收入和就业的影响，以及社会保险制度如何有效地保护个人免受疾病所致的收入损失。实证分析基于包括2000年至2016年芬兰总人口在内的独特登记数据。作为识别策略，使用了癌症诊断的确切时机。结果基于差异差异估计。乳腺癌对年收入的总体影响为–5.1％，收入五分位数之间存在显着差异：第二个收入五分位数的负面影响最大，为–8.9％。当使用其他社会经济变量时，结果仍然成立，而当我们将劳动力市场依附性较弱的妇女纳入分析时，影响会更大。心理健康问题只能适度地介导影响。从总收入来看，负面影响较小，突显了芬兰福利国家对缓解不良健康对经济福祉的影响的重要性。