Self-Reported Mental Health and the Demand for Mental Health Care After a Labor Market Shock: Evidence from the Spanish Great Recession

Polo-Muro Eduardo Ignacio ()
Additional contact information
Polo-Muro Eduardo Ignacio: University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain

Forum for Health Economics & Policy, 2023, vol. 26, issue 2, 17-40

Abstract: This research examines the mental health inequalities between employed and unemployed individuals among the fluctuations over the business cycle. To analyze whether a recession affects self-evaluated mental health and consequently increases the demand for mental health care, I exploit the sudden increase of the unemployment rate in Spain during the period 2007–2009. First, I analyze the impairment of self-evaluated mental health as a consequence of the Great Recession and if it prevails during the economic recovery. In addition, I estimate if the effect on self-reported mental health is reflected in demand for mental health care. The results from an event study design show that the economic downturn increases the differences between employed and unemployed individuals in self-evaluated mental health. However, and despite the continuous improvement in unemployment, the mental health gap remained unchanged between 2014 and 2017, which could imply the persistence of some lasting impacts of the Great Recession on mental health. Nonetheless, I find a reduction in the differences of using drugs related to mental health during the period 2011–2012, when I estimate the largest inequalities in self-evaluated mental health.

Keywords: mental health; unemployment; Great Recession (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I14 I18 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/fhep-2021-0070 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
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:bpj:fhecpo:v:26:y:2023:i:2:p:17-40:n:3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/fhep/html

DOI: 10.1515/fhep-2021-0070

Access Statistics for this article

Forum for Health Economics & Policy is currently edited by Dana Goldman

More articles in Forum for Health Economics & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().