Depression and anxiety in voluntarily unemployed people: a systematic review
Keywords:
Voluntarily unemployed, inactive workers, mental health outcomesAbstract
Unemployment has an important impact on people's physical and psychological wellbeing, and gender and age affect mental health among the unemployed. Despite the correlation between unemployment and negative mental health outcomes being largely investigated in scientific literature, research on voluntarily unemployed individuals is scarce. A systematic review was performed on studies evaluating mental health outcomes in voluntarily unemployed adults. Following the PRISMA statements three databases were screened; research articles written in English language and investigating the relationship between mental health outcomes and employment status were included. The quality of articles was assessed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. The initial search resulted in 727 records; 4 studies were included in this systematic review. One study reported inactive people as less depressed than employed and unemployed people, one as more depressed than employed but less than unemployed people, one reported inactive people as less anxious but more depressed than employed and less anxious and depressed than unemployed people, one study reported inactive men as depressed and anxious more often than employed men. Further research should investigate mental health outcomes in voluntarily unemployed people and strategies to bring back these individuals into the workforce.
References
Milner A, Page A, LaMontagne AD. Cause and effect in studies on unemployment, mental health and suicide: a meta-analytic and conceptual review. Psychol Med. 2014;44(5):909-917. doi:10.1017/S0033291713001621
Cornelius LR, van der Klink JJL, Groothoff JW, Brouwer S. Prognostic factors of long term disability due to mental disorders: a systematic review. J Occup Rehabil. 2011;21(2):259-274. doi:10.1007/s10926-010-9261-5
Bartelink VHM, Zay Ya K, Guldbrandsson K, Bremberg S. Unemployment among young people and mental health: A systematic review. Scand J Public Health. 2020;48(5):544-558. doi:10.1177/1403494819852847
Norström F, Virtanen P, Hammarström A, Gustafsson PE, Janlert U. How does unemployment affect self-assessed health? A systematic review focusing on subgroup effects. BMC Public Health. 2014;14:1310. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-1310
Zhao Y, Wu X, Tang M, et al. Late-life depression: Epidemiology, phenotype, pathogenesis and treatment be-fore and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Front Psychiatry. 2023;14:1017203. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1017203
Badrasawi M, Zidan S. Prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms in older people in the West Bank, Palestine: cross-sectional study. East Mediterr Health J Rev Sante Mediterr Orient Al-Majallah Al-Sihhiyah Li-Sharq Al-Mutawassit. 2021;27(3):260-268. doi:10.26719/2021.27.3.260
Park H, Hwangbo Y, Nam Y. The Effect of Employment and Occupational Factors on Late-Life Depression in Korea. J Occup Environ Med. 2018;60(9):e492-e497. doi:10.1097/JOM.0000000000001403
Schlomann A, Memmer N, Wahl HW. Awareness of age-related change is associated with attitudes toward technology and technology skills among older adults. Front Psychol. 2022;13:905043. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.905043
Gualano MR, Santoro PE, Borrelli I, et al. TElewoRk-RelAted Stress (TERRA), Psychological and Physical Strain of Working From Home During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review. Workplace Health Saf. 2023;71(2):58-67. doi:10.1177/21650799221119155
Artazcoz L, Benach J, Borrell C, Cortès I. Unemployment and mental health: understanding the interactions among gender, family roles, and social class. Am J Public Health. 2004;94(1):82-88. doi:10.2105/ajph.94.1.82
Strandh M, Hammarström A, Nilsson K, Nordenmark M, Russel H. Unemployment, gender and mental health: the role of the gender regime. Sociol Health Illn. 2013;35(5):649-665. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9566.2012.01517.x
Santoro PE, Borrelli I, Gualano MR, et al. Occupational hazards and gender differences: a narrative review. J Sex- Gend-Specif Med. 2022;8(3):154-162.
Martin-Carrasco M, Evans-Lacko S, Dom G, et al. EPA guidance on mental health and economic crises in Eu-rope. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2016;266(2):89-124. doi:10.1007/s00406-016-0681-x
Fukui S, Rollins AL, Salyers MP. Characteristics and Job Stressors Associated With Turnover and Turnover Intention Among Community Mental Health Providers. Psychiatr Serv. 2020;71(3):289-292. doi:10.1176/appi.ps.201900246
Kim J, Shin Y, Tsukayama E, Park D. Stress mindset predicts job turnover among preschool teachers. J Sch Psychol. 2020;78:13-22. doi:10.1016/j.jsp.2019.11.002
Stauder J. Unemployment, unemployment duration, and health: selection or causation?. Eur J Health Econ. 2019;20(1):59-73. doi:10.1007/s10198-018-0982-2
Fergusson DM, McLeod GF, Horwood LJ. Unemployment and psychosocial outcomes to age 30: A fixed-effects regression analysis. Aust N Z J Psychiatry. 2014;48(8):735-742. doi:10.1177/0004867414525840
Bynner J, Parsons S. Social Exclusion and the Transition from School to Work: The Case of Young People Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET). J Vocat Behav. 2002;60(2):289-309. doi:10.1006/jvbe.2001.1868
Gariépy G, Danna SM, Hawke L, Henderson J, Iyer SN. The mental health of young people who are not in ed-ucation, employment, or training: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epi-demiol. 2022;57(6):1107-1121. doi:10.1007/s00127-021-02212-8
International Labour Organization. Persons outside the labour force: How inactive are they really? ILO-STAT. Published August 7, 2019. Accessed July 14, 2023. https://ilostat.ilo.org/persons-outside-the-labour-force-how-inactive-are-they-really/
Jensen LK. Knee osteoarthritis: influence of work involving heavy lifting, kneeling, climbing stairs or lad-ders, or kneeling/squatting combined with heavy lifting. Occup Environ Med. 2008;65(2):72-89. doi:10.1136/oem.2007.032466
Page MJ, McKenzie JE, Bossuyt PM, et al. The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ. 2021;372:n71. doi:10.1136/bmj.n71
Ouzzani M, Hammady H, Fedorowicz Z, Elmagarmid A. Rayyan—a web and mobile app for systematic re-views. Syst Rev. 2016;5(1):210. doi:10.1186/s13643-016-0384-4
Wells G, B Shea, D O’Connell, et al. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) for assessing the quality of nonran-domised studies in meta-analyses. Ott Hosp Res Inst. Published online 2014. Accessed April 19, 2023. https://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/oxford.asp
Slavin RE. Best evidence synthesis: an intelligent alternative to meta-analysis. J Clin Epidemiol. 1995 Jan;48(1):9-18. doi: 10.1016/0895-4356(94)00097-a. PMID: 7853053.
Collings TJ, Bourne MN, Barrett RS, du Moulin W, Hickey JT, Diamond LE. Risk Factors for Lower Limb In-jury in Female Team Field and Court Sports: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Best Evidence Syn-thesis. Sports Med. 2021 Apr;51(4):759-776. doi: 10.1007/s40279-020-01410-9. Epub 2021 Jan 5. PMID: 33400215.
Buffel V, Van de Velde S, Bracke P. The mental health consequences of the economic crisis in Europe among the employed, the unemployed, and the non-employed. Soc Sci Res. 2015;54:263-288. doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.08.003
Gathergood J. An instrumental variable approach to unemployment, psychological health and social norm effects. Health Econ. 2013;22(6):643-654. doi:10.1002/hec.2831
Yao R, Wu W. Mental Disorders Associated with COVID-19 Related Unemployment. Appl Res Qual Life. 2022;17(2):949-970. doi:10.1007/s11482-021-09950-6
Aydiner-Avsar N, Piovani C. The Gender Impact of Unemployment on Mental Health: A Micro Analysis for the United States. Forum Soc Econ. 2021;50(4):505-529. doi:10.1080/07360932.2018.1535991
Arena AF, Harris M, Mobbs S, Nicolopoulos A, Harvey SB, Deady M. Exploring the lived experience of mental health and coping during unemployment. BMC Public Health. 2022;22(1):2451. doi:10.1186/s12889-022-14858-3
Lin SL. Generalized anxiety disorder during COVID-19 in Canada: Gender-specific association of COVID-19 misinformation exposure, precarious employment, and health behavior change. J Affect Disord. 2022;302:280-292. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2022.01.100
Peng M, Hu G, Dong J, Zhang L, Liu B, Sun Z. Employment-related anxiety and depression in senior college students in China. Zhong Nan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban. 2010;35(3):194-202. doi:10.3969/j.issn.1672-7347.2010.03.002
Time [Internet]. 2021 [cited 2023 Jun 16]. Young People Are Leaving Their Jobs in Record Numbers—And Not Going Back. Available from: https://time.com/6111245/young-workers-quitting/
Borrelli I, Santoro PE, Gualano MR, Moscato U, Rossi MF. Assessing the Great Resignation phenomenon: voluntary resignation of young Italian workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ann Ig. 2024;36(1):88-98. doi:10.7416/ai.2023.2585
Downloads
Issue
Section
License
All Journal's articles are Open Access papers distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Reproductions with commercial intent will require written permission and payment of royalties.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.