1 The buffering role of the family in the relationship between job loss and self-perceived health: longitudinal results from Europe, 2004-2011. Giulia Tattarini a , Raffaele Grotti b , Stefani Scherer c a WZB Social Science Center Berlin [giulia.tattarini@wzb.eu] b Social Research Division, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) [raffaele.grotti@esri.ie] c Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento [stefani.scherer@unitn.it] ABSTRACT Unemployment has numerous negative consequences for health, but the family and the welfare state can mitigate these consequences. How the family supports its members and whether and to what extent this interacts with the broader context is still an open question. Our evidence show that job loss is causally linked to significant declines in health for men, but not for women. Yet, the increased risk of poor health is lower for coupled men, especially if the partner is employed. This suggests that both emotional and economic support play a role. Moreover, the family’s mitigating role widely varies across different welfare regimes in Europe and it is particularly strong in Southern and Eastern regimes, characterized by “rudimentary” welfare systems and a more traditional family model. Keywords: Self-Rated Health, Social inequality, Unemployment, Social Support, Longitudinal analysis “NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Health & Place. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2018.04.006 ¨