The gender gap in mental well-being at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic: evidence from the UK

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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