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Table 1. Summary statistics
Male
Female
Sample Mean Std.dev. Min Max Mean Std.dev. Min Max
Depression/Anxiety 1.12 1.05 0 1 1.53 1.22 0 1
Unemployment rate (regional) 6.35 1.94 2.9 12.7 5.08 1.27 2.2 9.5
Unemployment rate (in sample) 4.96 2.17 0 1 3.73 1.89 0 1
Age 39.3 8.43 25 54 39.2 8.29 25 54
Married 64.6 4.78 0 1 70.9 4.54 0 1
Single 35.3 4.78 0 1 29.1 4.54 0 1
Degree 25.7 4.36 0 1 22.6 4.18 0 1
Higher 10.2 3.03 0 1 12.6 3.32 0 1
Alevel 27.9 4.48 0 1 16.7 3.73 0 1
Olevel 17.1 3.76 0 1 27.4 4.46 0 1
Other quali…cation 11.9 3.24 0 1 11.9 3.23 0 1
No quali…cation 6.91 2.53 0 1 8.45 2.78 0 1
Having a child 41.4 4.92 0 1 48.8 4.99 0 1
N 550,661 632,129
The mean probability of depression is greater for women then for men, which is in
line with medical evidence. The mean unemployment rate is higher for men than for
women, there is a slight di¤erence between unemployment rates in the sample and from
NOMIS, since the later are seasonally adjusted, and are calculated for the economically
active population aged 16 and over. The mean age is around 39 years, married individuals
constitute 64:6% and 71% of men and women sample respectively. There are more men
than women with a degree or A-level, while more women have completed higher education,
O-level or no quali…cation. More women than men have at least one child, as very few
single men report having children.
4 Results
The results are summarized in Tables 2:1: and 2:2. 16 The reported coe¢ cients are marginal
e¤ects for probit models where the dependent variable is an indicator whether the
respondent has depression, anxiety, bad nerves or not. For both "All Unemployed" and
"Unemployed due to Redundancy" speci…cations indicator variables for region, year, and
quarter are included, and heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors, clustered by region,
year and quarter, are reported in parentheses. The main …ndings suggest that the worsening
of economic conditions has a signi…cant detrimental e¤ect on the mental health of
the employed: an increase in regional unemployment rate is associated with an increase
in the probability to report mental problems. It is consistent with previous …ndings by
Ruhm (2003), Te¤ (2011a, 2011b). More precisely, when the regional unemployment rate
increase by 1 percentage point, the probability of su¤ering depression increases for the
employed men by 0:031 and for the employed women by 0:057 percentage points. This is
in line with medical reports which suggest that depression and anxiety are more common
in women than men. 17
16 The column "All Unemployed" refers to the case when all the unemployed are included in the regression,
while the column "Unemployed due to Redundancy" presents the results from the regressions with
unemloyed due to redundancies only. We present here the marginal e¤ects. The estimated coe¢ cients
from probit models are given in the Appendix.
17 These disparities may be due to women, when asked, being more likely to report symptoms of
depression (National Statistics, 2003), while depression in men may have been under diagnosed because
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