Journal Article

Economic insecurity: a socioeconomic determinant of mental health

Authors

Publication date

Dec 2018

Summary

Economic insecurity is an emerging topic that is increasingly relevant to the labour markets of developed economies. This paper uses data from the British Household Panel Survey to assess the causal effect of various aspects of economic insecurity on mental health in the UK. The results support the idea that economic insecurity is an emerging socioeconomic determinant of mental health, although the size of the effect varies across measures of insecurity. In particular, perceived future risks are more damaging to mental health than realised volatility, insecurity is more damaging for men, and the negative effect of insecurity is constant throughout the income distribution. Importantly, these changes in mental health are experienced without future unemployment necessarily occurring.

Published in

SSM - Population Health

Volume and page numbers

6 , 184 -194

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2018.09.006

ISSN

16

Subjects

Psychology, Economics, Well Being, and Health

Notes

Open Access; Under a Creative Commons license

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