Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
June 15, 2022
Summary:
We assess the decline in mental health after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK. This decline was more than twice as large for women as for men. We seek to explain this gender gap by exploring gender differences in: family and caring responsibilities; financial and work situation; social engagement; health situation, and health behaviours, including exercise. We assess their quantitative relevance by applying standard decomposition methods. We find that compositional differences in family and caring responsibilities explain part of the gender gap, but more important are gender differences in social factors, particularly changes in loneliness. We explore this result further by analysing gender differences in personality traits. Even after controlling for all factors there remains a noticeable age–gender gradient, with young females suffering particularly badly.
Published in
European Economic Review
Volume
Volume: 145:104114
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2022.104114
ISSN
142921
Subjects
Notes
Open Access
Under a Creative Commons license
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