Lídia Farré , Universitat de Barcelona, IAE (CSIC) and MOVE Francesco Fasani , Queen Mary University of London, IAE (CSIC) and MOVE Hannes Mueller , IAE (CSIC), Barcelona GSE and MOVE
December 20, 2015
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This article documents a strong connection between unemployment and mental disorders using data from the Spanish National Health Survey. We exploit the collapse of the construction sector to identify the causal effect of job loss. Our results suggest that an increase of the unemployment rate by 10 percent due to collapse of the sector raised mental disorders in the affected population by 3 percent. We argue that the large size of this effect responds to the fact that the construction sector was at the centre of the macroeconomic shock. As a result, workers exposed to the negative employment shock faced very low chances of re-entering employment. We show that this led to long unemployment spells, hopelessness and feelings of uselessness.
J.E.L classification codes: I10, J60, C26
Keywords:Mental health, Great recession, Unemployment, Spain