Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/43356 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series No. WP07/10
Publisher: 
University College Dublin, UCD School of Economics, Dublin
Abstract: 
The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) is frequently used as a measure of mental well-being with those people with values below a certain threshold regarded as suffering from mental stress. Comparison of mental stress levels across population may then be sensitive to the chosen threshold. This paper uses stochastic dominance techniques to show that mental stress fell in Ireland over the 1994 to 2000 period regardless of the threshold chosen. Decomposition techniques suggest that changes in the proportion unemployed and in the protective effect of income, education and marital status upon mental health were the principal factors underlying this fall.
Subjects: 
GHQ
mental stress
dominance
decomposition
JEL: 
I12
I31
I32
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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