IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp13503.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

COVID-19 and Mental Health Deterioration among BAME Groups in the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Proto, Eugenio

    (University of Glasgow)

  • Quintana-Domeque, Climent

    (University of Exeter)

Abstract

We use the UK Household Longitudinal Study and compare pre- (2017-2019) and post-COVID-19 data (April 2020) for the same group of individuals to assess and quantify changes in mental health among ethnic groups in the UK. We confirm the previously documented average deterioration in mental health for the whole sample of individuals interviewed pre- and post-COVID-19, and uncover four new facts. First, ethnicity predicts mental health deterioration when interacted with gender. Among men, BAME individuals experience a higher deterioration in mental health compared to British White individuals. However, among women, the deterioration in mental health is similar for both BAME and British White individuals. Second, the gender gap in mental health deterioration is only present among British White individuals and not among BAME individuals. Third, the drop in mental health among women and BAME men is very similar. Finally, there is substantial heterogeneity across BAME groups. The BAME group of Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani appears to be driving the difference in the gender gap in mental health deterioration between British White and BAME individuals. We call for additional research on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across different ethnic groups, and urge both policy makers and researchers to allocate resources to collect larger sample sizes of minority ethnic groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Proto, Eugenio & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2020. "COVID-19 and Mental Health Deterioration among BAME Groups in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 13503, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13503
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp13503.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugenio Proto, 2016. "Are happy workers more productive?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 315-315, November.
    2. Abi Adams-Prassl & Teodora Boneva & Marta Golin & Christopher Rauh, 2020. "The Impact of the Coronavirus Lockdown on Mental Health: Evidence from the US," Working Papers 2020-030, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Davillas, Apostolos & M. Jones, Andrew, 2020. "The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on inequality of opportunity in psychological distress in the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-07, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Dolan, Paul & Kavetsos, Georgios, 2012. "Happy talk: mode of administration effects on subjective well-being," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 45273, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. James Banks & Xiaowei Xu, 2020. "The Mental Health Effects of the First Two Months of Lockdown during the COVID‐19 Pandemic in the UK," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 685-708, September.
    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. Oreffice, Sonia & Quintana-Domeque, Climent, 2021. "Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 261-287, June.
    2. Francesco Fasani & Jacopo Mazza, 2023. "Being on the Frontline? Immigrant Workers in Europe and the COVID-19 Pandemic," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(5), pages 890-918, October.
    3. Giuntella, Osea & Hyde, Kelly & Saccardo, Silvia & Sadoff, Sally, 2020. "Lifestyle and Mental Health Disruptions during COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13569, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Chan, Ho Fai & Cheng, Zhiming & Mendolia, Silvia & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Tani, Massimiliano & Proulx, Damon & Savage, David & Torgler, Benno, 2022. "Societal Movement Restrictions and Adverse Mental Health Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 15111, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Farzana Afridi & Amrita Dhillon & Sanchari Roy, 2021. "The gendered crisis: livelihoods and mental well-being in India during COVID-19," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-65, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Barili, Emilia & Grembi, Veronica & Rosso, Anna C., 2023. "Mental health between present issues and future expectations," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 42-48.
    7. Anaya, L. & Howley, P. & Waqas, M. & Yalonetzky, G., 2021. "Locked down in distress: a causal estimation of the mental-health fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 21/10, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    8. Bryan, Mark & Bryce, Andrew & Rice, Nigel & Roberts, Jennifer & Sechel, Cristina, 2022. "Exploring mental health disability gaps in the labour market: the UK experience during COVID-19," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    9. Burdett, Ashley & Etheridge, Ben & Spantig, Lisa, 2020. "Weather affects mobility but not mental well-being during lockdown," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-13, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    10. Onur Altindag & Bilge Erten & Pinar Keskin, 2022. "Mental Health Costs of Lockdowns: Evidence from Age-Specific Curfews in Turkey," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 320-343, April.

    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. Sonia OREFICCE & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 261-287, June.
    2. Zhiming Cheng & Silvia Mendolia & Alfredo R. Paloyo & David A. Savage & Massimiliano Tani, 2021. "Working parents, financial insecurity, and childcare: mental health in the time of COVID-19 in the UK," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 123-144, March.
    3. Chan, Ho Fai & Cheng, Zhiming & Mendolia, Silvia & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Tani, Massimiliano & Proulx, Damon & Savage, David & Torgler, Benno, 2022. "Societal Movement Restrictions and Adverse Mental Health Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 15111, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gao, Xiaoying & Davillas, Apostolos & Jones, Andrew M., 2021. "The COVID-19 Pandemic and Its Impact on Socioeconomic Inequality in Psychological Distress in the UK: An Update," IZA Discussion Papers 14790, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Mathias Huebener & Sevrin Waights & C. Katharina Spiess & Nico A. Siegel & Gert G. Wagner, 2021. "Parental well-being in times of Covid-19 in Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 91-122, March.
    6. Farzana Afridi & Amrita Dhillon & Sanchari Roy, 2021. "The gendered crisis: livelihoods and mental well-being in India during COVID-19," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2021-65, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Onur Altindag & Bilge Erten & Pinar Keskin, 2022. "Mental Health Costs of Lockdowns: Evidence from Age-Specific Curfews in Turkey," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 320-343, April.
    8. Chanodom Piankusol & Wachiranun Sirikul & Krongporn Ongprasert & Penprapa Siviroj, 2021. "Factors Affecting Breastfeeding Practices under Lockdown during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand: A Cross-Sectional Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-11, August.
    9. García-Prado, Ariadna & González, Paula & Rebollo-Sanz, Yolanda F., 2022. "Lockdown strictness and mental health effects among older populations in Europe," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    10. Bagues, Manuel & Dimitrova, Velichka, 2021. "The Psychological Gains from COVID-19 Vaccination: Who Benefits the Most?," IZA Discussion Papers 14826, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Wachiranun Sirikul & Krongporn Ongprasert & Chanodom Piankusol & Penprapa Siviroj, 2021. "Maternal Mental Health under COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-14, December.
    12. David W. Johnston & Claryn S. J. Kung & Michael A. Shields, 2021. "Who is resilient in a time of crisis? The importance of financial and non‐financial resources," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(12), pages 3051-3073, December.
    13. Bau, Natalie & Khanna, Gaurav & Low, Corinne & Shah, Manisha & Sharmin, Sreyashi & Voena, Alessandra, 2022. "Women’s well-being during a pandemic and its containment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    14. Tani, Massimiliano & Cheng, Zhiming & Mendolia, Silvia & Paloyo, Alfredo R. & Savage, David, 2020. "Working Parents, Financial Insecurity, and Child-Care: Mental Health in the Time of COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13588, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Staneva, Anita & Carmignani, Fabrizio & Rohde, Nicholas, 2022. "Personality, gender, and age resilience to the mental health effects of COVID-19," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    16. Burlinson, Andrew & Giulietti, Monica & Law, Cherry & Liu, Hui-Hsuan, 2021. "Fuel poverty and financial distress," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    17. Jacques Wels, & Booth, Charlotte & Wielgoszewska, Bożena & Green, Michael J. & Di Gessa, Giorgio & Huggins, Charlotte F. & Griffith, Gareth J. & Kwong, Alex S.F. & Bowyer, Ruth C.E. & Maddock, Jane & , 2022. "Mental and social wellbeing and the UK coronavirus job retention scheme: Evidence from nine longitudinal studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    18. Bryan, Mark & Bryce, Andrew & Rice, Nigel & Roberts, Jennifer & Sechel, Cristina, 2022. "Exploring mental health disability gaps in the labour market: the UK experience during COVID-19," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    19. Xiaoying Gao & Apostolos Davillas & Andrew M. Jones, 2022. "The Covid‐19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the United Kingdom: An update," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(5), pages 912-920, May.
    20. Gina Voss & Andreia F. Paiva & Alice Delerue Matos, 2021. "A Study of the Association between the Stringency of Covid-19 Government Measures and Depression in Older Adults across Europe and Israel," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-12, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; gender; ethnicity; mental distress; wellbeing; mental health; GHQ-12;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp13503. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.