IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v71y2012i2p354-376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Cross‐Country Analysis of the Risk Factors for Depression at the Micro and Macro Levels

Author

Listed:
  • NATALIA MELGAR
  • MÁXIMO ROSSI

Abstract

Past research has provided evidence of the role of some personal characteristics as risk factors for depression. However, few studies have examined jointly their specific impact and whether country characteristics change the probability of being depressed. In general, this is due to the use of single-country databases. The aim of this paper is to extend previous findings by employing a much larger dataset and including the country effects mentioned above. The paper estimates probit models with country effects and explores linkages between specific environmental factors and depression using data from the 2007 Gallup Public Opinion Poll. Findings indicate that depression is positively related to being a woman, adulthood, divorce, widowhood, unemployment and low income. Moreover, there is evidence of the significant positive association between inequality and depression, especially for those living in urban areas. Finally, some population’s characteristics facilitate depression (age distribution and religious affiliation).
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Natalia Melgar & Máximo Rossi, 2012. "A Cross‐Country Analysis of the Risk Factors for Depression at the Micro and Macro Levels," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 354-376, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:71:y:2012:i:2:p:354-376
    DOI: j.1536-7150.2012.00831.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2012.00831.x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/j.1536-7150.2012.00831.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joan Costa Font & Joan Gil Trasfi, 2006. "Socio-Economic Inequalities in Reported Depression in Spain : A Decomposition Approach," Working Papers in Economics 152, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    2. World Bank, 2003. "Mental Health," World Bank Publications - Reports 9719, The World Bank Group.
    3. Frederick J. Zimmerman & Wayne Katon, 2005. "Socioeconomic status, depression disparities, and financial strain: what lies behind the income‐depression relationship?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(12), pages 1197-1215, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Natalia Melgar & Shoshana Neuman & Máximo Rossi, 2012. "Religion, religiosity and depression: re-assessing their relationship," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 1412, Department of Economics - dECON.
    2. Natalia Melgar & Máximo Rossi, 2012. "Involvement in environmental causes, does the joint effect between subjective income and the performance of the country matter?," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, June.
    3. Du, Hongfei & King, Ronnel B. & Chi, Peilian, 2019. "Income inequality is detrimental to long-term well-being: A large-scale longitudinal investigation in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 120-128.
    4. Natalia Melgar & Irene Mussio & Maximo Rossi, 2013. "Environmental Concern and Behavior: Do Personal Attributes Matter?," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 0113, Department of Economics - dECON.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joan Costa-Font & Joan Gil, 2008. "Would Socio-Economic Inequalities in Depression Fade Away with Income Transfers?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 539-558, December.
    2. Rojas, Mariano, 2011. "Poverty and psychological distress in Latin America," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 206-217, March.
    3. Arber, Sara & Fenn, Kirsty & Meadows, Robert, 2014. "Subjective financial well-being, income and health inequalities in mid and later life in Britain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 12-20.
    4. Menta, Giorgia & Lepinteur, Anthony & Clark, Andrew E. & Ghislandi, Simone & D'Ambrosio, Conchita, 2023. "Maternal genetic risk for depression and child human capital," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Menta, Giorgia & Lepinteur, Anthony & Clark, Andrew E. & Ghislandi, Simone & D’Ambrosio, Conchita, 2021. "Maternal depression and child human capital: A genetic instrumental-variable approach," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 2107, CEPREMAP.
    6. Jun Zhang & Yuang He & Jing Zhang, 2022. "Energy Poverty and Depression in Rural China: Evidence from the Quantile Regression Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-21, January.
    7. Yanhong Gong & Xiulan Zhang & Hong Zou & Donghua Tian & Zhiyong Qu & Weijun Zhang & Yongqiang Chu, 2014. "Debt and depression among the Dibao population in northwestern China," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(7), pages 637-645, November.
    8. Irina Grafova, 2011. "Financial Strain and Smoking," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 327-340, June.
    9. Martin Dlouhý, 2009. "Ekonomie péče o dušení zdraví v České republice [Economics of Mental Health Care in the Czech Republic]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2009(6), pages 792-800.
    10. Hansen Li & Matthew H. E. M. Browning & Angel M. Dzhambov & Guodong Zhang & Yang Cao, 2022. "Green Space for Mental Health in the COVID-19 Era: A Pathway Analysis in Residential Green Space Users," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-18, July.
    11. Qin Zhou & Xuezheng Qin & Gordon G. Liu, 2020. "Relative economic status and mental health among Chinese adults: Evidence from the China health and retirement longitudinal study," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1312-1332, November.
    12. Zhang, Jun & Yen, Steven T., 2013. "Depressive Symptoms and Endogenous Physical Activity: An Ordered Probability Approach," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 150133, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    13. Stuart Watson & Bonnie Barber & Suzanne Dziurawiec, 2015. "The Role of Economizing and Financial Strain in Australian University Students’ Psychological Well-Being," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 421-433, September.
    14. Wicke, Felix S. & Schmidt, Peter & Petersen, Julia & Ernst, Mareike & Krakau, Lina & Brähler, Elmar & Tibubos, Ana N. & Otten, Danielle & Reiner, Iris & Michal, Matthias & Schulz, Andreas & Münzel, Th, 2022. "Depression predicts equivalized income five years later, but not vice versa: Results from the prospective Gutenberg Health Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    15. Hania Wu & Tony Tam, 2015. "Economic Development and Socioeconomic Inequality of Well-Being: A Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Urban China, 2003–2011," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 401-425, November.
    16. Anne-Fleur Roos & Maaike Diepstraten & Rudy Douven, 2021. "When financials get tough, life gets rough? Problematic debts and ill health," CPB Discussion Paper 428, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    17. Chee‐Ruey Hsieh & Xuezheng Qin, 2018. "Depression hurts, depression costs: The medical spending attributable to depression and depressive symptoms in China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(3), pages 525-544, March.
    18. Min Ji Kim & Namwoo Kim & Daun Shin & Sang Jin Rhee & C Hyung Keun Park & Hyeyoung Kim & Sung Joon Cho & Jae Won Lee & Eun Young Kim & Boram Yang & Yong Min Ahn, 2019. "The epidemiology of antidepressant use in South Korea: Does short-term antidepressant use affect the relapse and recurrence of depressive episodes?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-14, September.
    19. Koomson, Isaac & Orkoh, Emmanuel & Ahmad, Shabbir, 2023. "Non-farm entrepreneurship, caste, and energy poverty in rural India," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(PA).
    20. Kirsten Rasmussen & Elizabeth K. Sigler & Sadie A. Slighting & Jonathan A. Jarvis & Mikaela J. Dufur & Shana Pribesh, 2022. "Family Structure and Maternal Depressive Symptoms: A Cross-National Comparison of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-21, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:71:y:2012:i:2:p:354-376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.