IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp18385.html

Spousal Death, Mental Health and Survivor Benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Barschkett, Mara

    (University of Bonn)

  • Tréguier, Julie

    (DIW Berlin)

Abstract

In this paper, we estimate the causal effect of social security income on mental health. We focus on widowhood, a life event associated with large and persistent mental health declines, and exploit a reform of the Dutch survivor benefits system that introduced cohort-based restrictions in benefit eligibility. Using administrative data, we find that reduced access to survivor benefits increases antidepressant use by 9%, accounting for 35% of the overall rise in antidepressant use following spousal death. A mechanism analysis shows that survivor benefits stabilize mental health by smoothing living standards, highlighting the potential welfare gains from well-targeted income support policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Barschkett, Mara & Tréguier, Julie, 2026. "Spousal Death, Mental Health and Survivor Benefits," IZA Discussion Papers 18385, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp18385.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    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:dp18385. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.