Survivors' Mental Health and the Protective Role of Income Stability

Itzik Fadlon, Astrid Sophie Fugleholm and Torben Heien Nielsen

American Economic Review: Insights, 2026, vol. 8, issue 2, 265-84

Abstract: We use administrative records on the universe of Danish households to characterize survivors' mental health following their spouse's death. We provide visually clear evidence for the immediate, large, and lingering adverse impacts and focus on studying the role of income security in driving the immediate effects. We find that, for both males and females, a large share of the spike in the take-up of mental health medication upon spousal death can be explained by the income loss imposed by the shock. Our results imply that safety net policies can improve survivors' mental health via the immediate liquidity they provide.

JEL-codes: D12 D91 G51 H55 I12 I38 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aeri.20250006 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25382 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/25383 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Survivors’ Mental Health and the Protective Role of Income Stability (2026)
Working Paper: Survivors' Mental Health and the Protective Role of Income Stability (2025)
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:aea:aerins:v:8:y:2026:i:2:p:265-84

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20250006

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review: Insights is currently edited by Amy Finkelstein

More articles in American Economic Review: Insights from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().