Adult children’s unemployment and parental mental health in India: social and economic moderators

This study explores the relationship between adult children's unemployment and parental mental health. Given India's vast inequalities in social capital and income, we examine their moderating effects on this relationship. We use data from the Longitudinal Ageing Survey of India, including 73,396 individuals aged 45 and above. We consider exposure to the unemployment of adult children as a treatment and measure parental risk of depression using the CES-D score, with respondents reporting four or more symptoms out of 10 considered “depressed”. We employ inverse probability weighting based on the logistic regression model to form a pseudo-control group, accounting for the confounding demographic and socio-economic factors. Our findings show a 3.11 percentage point (ppt) increase in absolute terms (and a 12.30% relative increase) in the probability of parental depression associated with adult children's unemployment. Moderation analyses reveal that among older adults with high social participation, there is no increase in their risk of depression following their children's unemployment. Similarly, among older adults residing in low and medium-income inequality states, the negative consequences of their children's unemployment are weaker. Overall, this research concludes that while adult children’s unemployment is associated with an increased risk of parental depression, higher social participation and residing in low or medium-income inequality states have protective effects on older adults’ mental health following their children's unemployment. Governments may consider expanding labour market policies supporting youth labour market entry as a means to improve not only the employability of younger individuals, but also the well-being of older generations.