IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v23y2014i9p1058-1071.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect Of Mental Health On Employment: Evidence From Australian Panel Data

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Frijters
  • David W. Johnston
  • Michael A. Shields

Abstract

To what extent does poor mental health affect employment outcomes? Answering this question involves multiple technical difficulties: two‐way causality between health and work, unobservable confounding factors and measurement error in survey measures of mental health. We attempt to overcome these difficulties by combining 10 waves of high‐quality panel data with an instrumental variable model that allows for individual‐level fixed effects. We focus on the extensive margin of employment, and we find evidence that a one‐standard‐deviation decline in mental health reduces employment by 30 percentage points. Further investigations suggest that this effect is predominantly a supply rather than a demand‐side response and is larger for older than young workers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Frijters & David W. Johnston & Michael A. Shields, 2014. "The Effect Of Mental Health On Employment: Evidence From Australian Panel Data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(9), pages 1058-1071, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:23:y:2014:i:9:p:1058-1071
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3083
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3083
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.3083?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pinka Chatterji & Margarita Alegría & Mingshan Lu & David Takeuchi, 2007. "Psychiatric disorders and labor market outcomes: evidence from the National Latino and Asian American Study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(10), pages 1069-1090.
    2. Clark, Andrew E & Oswald, Andrew J, 1994. "Unhappiness and Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 104(424), pages 648-659, May.
    3. Victoria D. Ojeda & Richard G. Frank & Thomas G. McGuire & Todd P. Gilmer, 2010. "Mental illness, nativity, gender and labor supply," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 396-421, April.
    4. Bender, Keith A. & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2009. "Controlling for endogeneity in the health-socioeconomic status relationship of the near retired," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 977-987, December.
    5. Paul Frijters & David W. Johnston & Michael A. Shields, 2011. "Life Satisfaction Dynamics with Quarterly Life Event Data," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 113(1), pages 190-211, March.
    6. James H. Stock & Motohiro Yogo, 2002. "Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression," NBER Technical Working Papers 0284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Theodossiou, I., 1998. "The effects of low-pay and unemployment on psychological well-being: A logistic regression approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 85-104, January.
    8. Chatterji, Pinka & Alegria, Margarita & Takeuchi, David, 2011. "Psychiatric disorders and labor market outcomes: Evidence from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 858-868.
    9. Susan L. Ettner & Richard G. Frank & Ronald C. Kessler, 1997. "The Impact of Psychiatric Disorders on Labor Market Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 5989, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Pinka Chatterji & Margarita Alegría & Mingshan Lu & David Takeuchi, 2007. "Psychiatric disorders and labor market outcomes: evidence from the National Latino and Asian American Study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(10), pages 1069-1090, October.
    11. Vivian H. Hamilton & Philip Merrigan & Éric Dufresne, 1997. "Down and out: estimating the relationship between mental health and unemployment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 397-406, July.
    12. Erik Meijer & Arie Kapteyn & Tatiana Andreyeva, 2011. "Internationally comparable health indices," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(5), pages 600-619, May.
    13. Richard Frank & Paul Gertler, 1991. "An Assessment of Measurement Error Bias for Estimating the Effect of Mental Distress on Income," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(1), pages 154-164.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Mark L Bryan & Nigel Rice & Jennifer Roberts & Cristina Sechel, 2022. "Mental Health and Employment: A Bounding Approach Using Panel Data," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(5), pages 1018-1051, October.
    2. Germinario, Giuseppe & Amin, Vikesh & Flores, Carlos A. & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso, 2022. "What can we learn about the effect of mental health on labor market outcomes under weak assumptions? Evidence from the NLSY79," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. INUI Tomohiko & KAWAKAMI Atsushi & MA Xin Xin & ZHAO Meng, 2019. "Does Mental Health Affect Labor Market Outcomes? Evidence from a National Representative Survey in Japan," Discussion papers 19061, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Ringdal, Charlotte & Rootjes, Frank, 2022. "Depression and labor supply: Evidence from the Netherlands," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    5. Bryan, M.; & Roberts, J.; & Sechel, C.;, 2019. "The Effect of Mental Health on Employment:Accounting for Selection Bias," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/14, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    6. Messel, Matt & Swensen, Isaac & Urban, Carly, 2023. "The effects of expanding access to mental health services on SS(D)I applications and awards," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Tefft, Nathan, 2012. "Mental health and employment: The SAD story," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 242-255.
    8. Chatterji, Pinka & Alegria, Margarita & Takeuchi, David, 2011. "Psychiatric disorders and labor market outcomes: Evidence from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 858-868.
    9. Stéphane Mahuteau & Rong Zhu, 2016. "Crime Victimisation and Subjective Well‐Being: Panel Evidence From Australia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(11), pages 1448-1463, November.
    10. Johnston, David W. & Schurer, Stefanie & Shields, Michael A., 2011. "Evidence on the Long Shadow of Poor Mental Health across Three Generations," IZA Discussion Papers 6014, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Jason Fletcher, 2013. "Adolescent Depression and Adult Labor Market Outcomes," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 26-49, July.
    12. Bubonya, Melisa & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Ribar, David C., 2017. "The Bilateral Relationship between Depressive Symptoms and Employment Status," IZA Discussion Papers 10653, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Andersen, Martin, 2015. "Heterogeneity and the effect of mental health parity mandates on the labor market," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 74-84.
    14. Jaime Ruiz-Tagle & Pablo Troncoso, 2018. "Labor Cost of Mental Health: Evidence from Chile," Working Papers wp468, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    15. Elena Lagomarsino & Alessandro Spiganti, 2020. "No gain in pain: psychological well-being, participation, and wages in the BHPS," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(9), pages 1375-1389, December.
    16. Souvik Banerjee & Pinka Chatterji & Kajal Lahiri, 2017. "Effects of Psychiatric Disorders on Labor Market Outcomes: A Latent Variable Approach Using Multiple Clinical Indicators," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(2), pages 184-205, February.
    17. Johnston, David W. & Schurer, Stefanie & Shields, Michael A., 2013. "Exploring the intergenerational persistence of mental health: Evidence from three generations," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1077-1089.
    18. Lizhong Peng & Chad D. Meyerhoefer & Samuel H. Zuvekas, 2016. "The Short‐Term Effect of Depressive Symptoms on Labor Market Outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(10), pages 1223-1238, October.
    19. Thomas Barnay & Éric Defebvre, 2019. "Gender Differences in the Influence of Mental Health on Job Retention," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 33(4), pages 507-532, December.
    20. Bardasi, Elena & Francesconi, Marco, 2000. "The Effect of Non-Standard Employment on Mental Health in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 232, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    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:wly:hlthec:v:23:y:2014:i:9:p:1058-1071. 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://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.