A Family Affair: Job Loss and the Mental Health of Spouses and Adolescents

Melisa Bubonya, Deborah Cobb-Clark and Mark Wooden
Additional contact information
Melisa Bubonya: ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR)

No 8588, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study examines the impact of involuntary job loss on the mental health of family members. Estimates from fixed-effects panel data models, using panel data for Australia, provide little evidence of any negative spillover effect on the mental health of husbands as a result of their wives' job loss. The mental well-being of wives, however, declines following their husbands' job loss, but only if that job loss results in a sustained period of non-employment or if the couple experienced financial hardship or relationship strain prior to the husband's job loss. A negative effect of parental job loss on the mental health of co-resident adolescent children is also found, but appears to be restricted to girls.

Keywords: spouses; families; mental health; involuntary job loss; unemployment; adolescents; HILDA Survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 J10 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 53 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hap, nep-hea and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: IZA Journal of Labor Economics , 2017, 6, 6 (2017)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp8588.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: A Family Affair: Job Loss and the Mental Health of Spouses and Adolescents (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8588

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().