Immigrant Mental Health and Unemployment

Steven Kennedy

Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers from McMaster University

Abstract: The objective of this research is to assess whether stress associated with the transition to a new country combined with additional stress arising from unemployment affects the mental health of immigrants. I use the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia (LSIA) to examine the effect of labour force status on the mental health of immigrants. By using a rich longitudinal data set, I am able to control for individual immigrant differences whilst examining whether changes in mental health cause changes in labour force status rather than changes in labour force status causing changes in mental health. I find that causality runs from unemployment to mental health and that unemployment significantly adversely affects the mental health of immigrants. Other characteristics associated with poor mental health include; age, gender, visa category, marital status and educational attainment.

Keywords: Immigrants; Mental health; Unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 J69 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2003-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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