| الوصف: |
The way job loss affects mental health within couples attracts increasing attention. While previous studies focused on the working-age population, this paper investigates how job loss affects spouses’ depressive symptoms in later life. We focus on spouses aged 50 or older, who represent a vulnerable segment of the labor market, and who also have a high prevalence of depressive symptoms. We use data from the Health and Retirement Study, which provides longitudinal information about changes in labor market status and mental health outcomes among respondents and their spouses in the United States. To deal with potential reverse causality problems, we utilize data on job loss resulting from business closures. We find that job loss may affect the levels of depressive symptoms among the spouses of older adults who experience these adverse life course events. The effects are gendered, as women are negatively affected by job losses experienced by their husbands, but we do not observe such harmful effects among men whose wives lose their jobs. We also show how the effects of job loss vary across couples with differing levels of economic resources and health care needs, as well as differential access to health care. |
