The effect of involuntary unemployment on the mental health of spouses

Jan Marcus

VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: This paper is the first to estimate the effect of one partner's entry into unemployment on the mental health of both spouses in Germany. In order to give the estimates a causal interpretation, this study focuses on an exogenous entry into unemployment (plant closure) and applies a regression-adjusted semiparametric difference-in-difference matching strategy, which is robust against selection on observables and time-invariant unobservables. About one year after the plant closure, unemployment decreased mental health by 25% of a standard deviation for the unemployed individuals themselves and by 23% of a standard deviation for their spouses. The results are robust over various matching specifications and different choices of the conditioning variables. Furthermore, this paper shows that mental health does not follow a different trend for treated and matched controls before the plant closure, adding additional credibility to the identification assumption.

JEL-codes: C21 I12 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/65413/1/VfS_2012_pid_547.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The effect of unemployment on the mental health of spouses - Evidence from plant closures in Germany (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc12:65413

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