IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v78y2022ics0927537122001439.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring mental health disability gaps in the labour market: the UK experience during COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Bryan, Mark
  • Bryce, Andrew
  • Rice, Nigel
  • Roberts, Jennifer
  • Sechel, Cristina

Abstract

People with long-term mental health problems that affect their daily activities are a growing proportion of the UK working population and they have a particularly low employment rate. We analyse gaps in labour market outcomes between mental health disabled and non-disabled people during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. We also decompose the outcome gaps in order to explore the relative importance of different factors in explaining these gaps. Our results suggest that the employment effects of the pandemic for mental health disabled people may have been temporary. However, they were more likely to be away from work and/or working reduced hours than people without a disability. Workers with mental health disability were over-represented in part-time work and in caring, leisure and other service occupations, which were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and the economic response. This is important new evidence on the contribution of segmentation and segregation in explaining the labour market position of people with mental health disability. The longer term effects of the pandemic were still not apparent at the end of our analysis period (2021:Q3), but the concentration of disabled workers in cyclically sensitive sectors and part-time work means that they will always be particularly vulnerable to economic downturns.

Suggested Citation

  • 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).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:78:y:2022:i:c:s0927537122001439
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102253
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537122001439
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2022.102253?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugenio Proto & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2020. "COVID-19 and Mental Health Deterioration among BAME groups in the UK," Working Papers 2020_16, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    2. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    3. Xueliang Wei & Guorong Zhu & Jianghua Lu & Wenjing Li & And Erjie Qi, 2017. "Improved Reactive Current Detection Method of SVG," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-11, September.
    4. Ben Jann, 2005. "Standard Errors for the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition," German Stata Users' Group Meetings 2005 03, Stata Users Group.
    5. Graeber, Daniel & Kritikos, Alexander S. & Seebauer, Johannes, 2021. "COVID-19: a crisis of the female self-employed," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 1141-1187.
    6. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    7. Javier Gardeazabal & Arantza Ugidos, 2004. "More on Identification in Detailed Wage Decompositions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 1034-1036, November.
    8. Bhagyalakshmi A & Jashwanthi A & Asha S & Roshni P, 2017. "Improvised Autonomous Car for a Safe Travel," Current Trends in Biomedical Engineering & Biosciences, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 6(1), pages 7-9, July.
    9. repec:wly:soecon:v:78:3:y:20121:p:931-953 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Boeri, Tito, 2011. "Institutional Reforms and Dualism in European Labor Markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 13, pages 1173-1236, Elsevier.
    11. Meyer, Bruce D. & Mok, Wallace K.C., 2019. "Disability, earnings, income and consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 51-69.
    12. Simonetta Longhi & Cheti Nicoletti & Lucinda Platt, 2012. "Interpreting Wage Gaps of Disabled Men: The Roles of Productivity and of Discrimination," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(3), pages 931-953, January.
    13. Keping Li & Xin Ma & Fubo Shao, 2017. "An improved network model for railway traffic," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 28(03), pages 1-22, March.
    14. Melanie K. Jones & Paul L. Latreille & Peter J. Sloane, 2006. "Disability, gender, and the British labour market," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 407-449, July.
    15. 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.
    16. Ari Ne'eman & Nicole Maestas, 2022. "How Has COVID-19 Impacted Disability Employment?," NBER Working Papers 30640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Robert Joyce & Xiaowei Xu, 2020. "COVID‐19 and Inequalities," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 291-319, June.
    18. Myeong-Su Yun, 2005. "A Simple Solution to the Identification Problem in Detailed Wage Decompositions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 43(4), pages 766-772, October.
    19. Simon Mongey & Laura Pilossoph & Alexander Weinberg, 2021. "Which workers bear the burden of social distancing?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(3), pages 509-526, September.
    20. Simonetta Longhi & Cheti Nicoletti & Lucinda Platt, 2012. "Interpreting Wage Gaps of Disabled Men: The Roles of Productivity and of Discrimination," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(3), pages 931-953, January.
    21. William G. Johnson & James Lambrinos, 1985. "Wage Discrimination against Handicapped Men and Women," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 20(2), pages 264-277.
    22. Ben Jann, 2008. "The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for linear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(4), pages 453-479, December.
    23. Cuihong Li & Zhixi Wan, 2017. "Supplier Competition and Cost Improvement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2460-2477, August.
    24. Reeves, Aaron & Karanikolos, Marina & Mackenbach, Johan & McKee, Martin & Stuckler, David, 2014. "Do employment protection policies reduce the relative disadvantage in the labour market experienced by unhealthy people? A natural experiment created by the Great Recession in Europe," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 98-108.
    25. Ronald L. Oaxaca & Michael R. Ransom, 1999. "Identification in Detailed Wage Decompositions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(1), pages 154-157, February.
    26. Yun Kang & Shunxiang Wu & Yuwen Li & Wei Weng, 2017. "New and improved: grey multi-granulation rough sets," International Journal of Systems Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(12), pages 2575-2589, September.
    27. Melanie K. Jones, 2007. "Does Part‐Time Employment Provide A Way Of Accommodating A Disability?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(6), pages 695-716, December.
    28. Melanie Jones & Kim Hoque & Victoria Wass & Nick Bacon, 2021. "Inequality and the Economic Cycle: Disabled Employees’ Experience of Work during the Great Recession in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(3), pages 788-815, September.
    29. Jones, Melanie, 2022. "COVID-19 and the labour market outcomes of disabled people in the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    30. Marjorie Baldwin & William G. Johnson, 1994. "Labor Market Discrimination against Men with Disabilities," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(1), pages 1-19.
    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. Fortin, Nicole & Lemieux, Thomas & Firpo, Sergio, 2011. "Decomposition Methods in Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 1, pages 1-102, Elsevier.
    2. Sonja C. Kassenboehmer & Mathias G. Sinning, 2014. "Distributional Changes in the Gender Wage Gap," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 335-361, April.
    3. Barr, Tavis & Lin, Carl, 2015. "A detailed decomposition of synthetic cohort analysis," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 76-80.
    4. Juan Acosta-Ballesteros & María del Pilar Osorno-del Rosal & Olga María Rodríguez-Rodríguez, 2021. "Measuring the effect of gender segregation on the gender gap in time-related underemployment," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 55(1), pages 1-16, December.
    5. Ronald Bachmann & Mathias Sinning, 2016. "Decomposing the Ins and Outs of Cyclical Unemployment," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 853-876, December.
    6. Pagan, Ricardo, 2011. "Ageing and disability: Job satisfaction differentials across Europe," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 206-215, January.
    7. García, A., 2016. "Oaxaca-Blinder Type Counterfactual Decomposition Methods for Duration Outcomes," Documentos de Trabajo 14186, Universidad del Rosario.
    8. Sergio P. Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2018. "Decomposing Wage Distributions Using Recentered Influence Function Regressions," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-40, May.
    9. Adam Pilny, 2017. "Explaining Differentials in Subsidy Levels Among Hospital Ownership Types in Germany," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 566-581, May.
    10. BALDWIN Marjorie L. & CHOE Chung, 2010. "New Estimates of Disability-Related Wage Discrimination with Controls for Job Demands," LISER Working Paper Series 2010-14, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    11. Vassilis Monastiriotis & Angelo Martelli, 2021. "Crisis, Adjustment and Resilience in the Greek Labor Market: An Unemployment Decomposition Approach," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 44(1), pages 85-112, January.
    12. Domenico Depalo & Raffaela Giordano & Evangelia Papapetrou, 2015. "Public–private wage differentials in euro-area countries: evidence from quantile decomposition analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 985-1015, November.
    13. Athina Economou & Christos Kollias, 2024. "The 2015 Refugee Crisis and Institutional Trust in European Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 173(2), pages 377-396, June.
    14. Bonaccolto-Töpfer, Marina & Briel, Stephanie, 2022. "The gender pay gap revisited: Does machine learning offer new insights?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    15. Niels-Hugo Blunch & Maitreyi Bordia Das, 2015. "Changing norms about gender inequality in education: Evidence from Bangladesh," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(6), pages 183-218.
    16. repec:ost:wpaper:345 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Gang, Ira N. & Schmillen, Achim, 2017. "Sometimes, winners lose: Economic disparity and indigenization in Kazakhstan," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 605-621.
    18. Nii-Aponsah, Hubert, 2022. "Automation exposure and implications in advanced and developing countries across gender, age, and skills," MERIT Working Papers 2022-021, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    19. Kampon ADIREKSOMBAT & FANG Zheng & Chris SAKELLARIOU, 2010. "The Evolution of Gender Wage Differentials and Discrimination in Thailand: 1991-2007 — An Application of Unconditional Quantile Regression," Economic Growth Centre Working Paper Series 1005, Nanyang Technological University, School of Social Sciences, Economic Growth Centre.
    20. Lin, Carl, 2012. "Less Myth, More Measurement: Decomposing Excess Returns from the 1989 Minimum Wage Hike," IZA Discussion Papers 6269, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    21. ChangHwan Kim, 2010. "Decomposing the Change in the Wage Gap Between White and Black Men Over Time, 1980-2005: An Extension of the Blinder-Oaxaca Decomposition Method," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 38(4), pages 619-651, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disability gaps; mental health; employment outcomes; COVID-19; decomposition analysis;
    All these 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
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:eee:labeco:v:78:y:2022:i:c:s0927537122001439. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    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.