Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/161275 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 10652
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
An important, yet unsettled, question in public health policy is the extent to which unemployment causally impacts mental health. The recent literature yields varying findings, which are likely due to differences in data, methods, samples, and institutional settings. Taking a more general approach, we provide comparable evidence for four countries with different institutional settings Australia, Germany, the UK, and the US using a nonparametric bounds analysis. Relying on fairly weak and partially testable assumptions, our paper shows that unemployment has a significant negative effect on mental health in all countries. Our results rule out effects larger than a quarter of a standard deviation for Germany and half a standard deviation for the Anglo-Saxon countries. The effect is significant for both men and women and materialises already for short periods of unemployment. Public policy should hence focus on early prevention of mental health problems among the unemployed.
Subjects: 
mental health
unemployment
bounds
JEL: 
I12
J64
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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