Citation

Bubonya M, Cobb-Clark DA, Christensen D, Johnson SE, Zubrick SR. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2019; 16(4): ePub.

Affiliation

Centre for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA 6009, Australia. stephen.zubrick@telethonkids.org.au.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute)

DOI

10.3390/ijerph16040537

PMID

30781815

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of "shocks" to community-level unemployment expectations, induced by the onset of the Great Recession, on children's mental well-being. The Australian experience of the Great Recession represents a unique case study as despite little change in actual unemployment rates, levels of economic uncertainty grew. This affords us the ability to examine the effects of shocks to economic expectations independent of any actual changes to economic conditions. We draw on and link data from multiple sources, including several waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (2004⁻2010), a consumer sentiment survey, and data on local economic conditions. Using our purpose-built data set, we estimate difference-in-differences models to identify plausibly causal effects. We find, for boys, there is no detectable effect of community-level unemployment expectations shocks on mental health. For girls, however, there are modest increases in mental health problems and externalizing behaviors, as measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). We additionally find no discernible change in mother's psychological distress as a result of expectations shocks. These results are stable after controlling for actual labor market conditions.

Language: en

Keywords

Australia; children; consumer sentiment; economic recession; longitudinal studies; macroeconomic; mental health