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Do More of Those in Misery Suffer from Poverty, Unemployment or Mental Illness?

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  • Sarah Flèche
  • Richard Layard

Abstract

Studies of deprivation usually ignore mental illness. This paper uses household panel data from the USA, Australia, Britain and Germany to broaden the analysis. We ask first how many of those in the lowest levels of life-satisfaction suffer from unemployment, poverty, physical ill health, and mental illness. The largest proportion suffer from mental illness. Multiple regression shows that mental illness is not highly correlated with poverty or unemployment, and that it contributes more to explaining the presence of misery than is explained by either poverty or unemployment. This holds both with and without fixed effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Flèche & Richard Layard, 2015. "Do More of Those in Misery Suffer from Poverty, Unemployment or Mental Illness?," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 784, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp784
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    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Do More of those in Misery Suffer From Poverty, Unemployment or Mental Illness? By: Sarah Flèche ; Richard Layard
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2015-06-15 22:29:53
    2. Do More of Those in Misery Suffer from Poverty, Unemployment or Mental Illness? By: Flèche, Sarah (CEP, London School of Economics) ; Layard, Richard (London School of Economics)
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2015-08-17 19:30:31
    3. Do more of those in misery suffer from poverty, unemployment or mental illness? By: Sarah Flèche ; Richard Layard
      by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog on 2015-07-30 22:25:31

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    Cited by:

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    2. Clark, Andrew E. & Lee, Tom, 2021. "Early-life correlates of later-life well-being: Evidence from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 360-368.
    3. Niclas Berggren & Andreas Bergh & Christian Bjørnskov & Shiori Tanaka, 2020. "Migrants and Life Satisfaction: The Role of the Country of Origin and the Country of Residence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(3), pages 436-463, August.
    4. Chiara Costi & Andrew Clark & Conchita D'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur & Giorgia Menta, 2024. "Return-to-Office Mandates, Health and Well-being: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," LISER Working Paper Series 2024-07, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    5. Sarracino, Francesco & Greyling, Talita & O'Connor, Kelsey J. & Peroni, Chiara & Rossouw, Stephanie, 2024. "Trust predicts compliance with COVID-19 containment policies: Evidence from ten countries using big data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    6. Milena Nikolova & Sinem H. Ayhan, 2019. "Your spouse is fired! How much do you care?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 799-844, July.
    7. Smith, Peter C. & Sagan, Anna & Siciliani, Luigi & Figueras, Josep, 2023. "Building on value-based health care: Towards a health system perspective," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    8. Francesco Sarracino & Talita Greyling & Kelsey J. O'Connor & Chiara Peroni & Stephanie Rossouw, 2021. "Trust predicts compliance to Covid-19 containment policies: evidence from ten countries using big data," Department of Economics University of Siena 858, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    9. Kelsey J. O'Connor, 2020. "Life Satisfaction and Noncognitive Skills: Effects on the Likelihood of Unemployment," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(4), pages 568-604, November.
    10. Rigg, Khary K. & McNeish, Roxann & Schadrac, Daniel & Gonzalez, Alejandra & Tran, Quynh, 2019. "Community needs of minority male youth living in inner-city Chicago," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 284-289.
    11. Christopher Barrington-Leigh & Jan T. Wollenberg, 2019. "Informing Policy Priorities using Inference from Life Satisfaction Responses in a Large Community Survey," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(4), pages 911-924, September.
    12. Strulik, Holger, 2019. "An economic theory of depression and its impact on health behavior and longevity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 269-287.
    13. Jan Delhey & Stephanie Hess & Klaus Boehnke & Franziska Deutsch & Jan Eichhorn & Ulrich Kühnen & Christian Welzel, 2023. "Life Satisfaction During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Human, Economic, Social, and Psychological Capital," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(7), pages 2201-2222, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mental health; life-satisfaction; wellbeing; poverty; unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

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