Conflicting economic policies and mental health
Evidence from the UK national living wage and benefits freeze
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11680956 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lateef Akanni (0000-0002-5495-1173, Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems University of Liverpool Liverpool UK, corresponding author), Otto Lenhart (0000-0003-0949-4820, Strathclyde Business School University of Strathclyde Glasgow UK), Alec Morton (0000-0003-3803-8517, Strathclyde Business School University of Strathclyde Glasgow UK) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1185-1208 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0276-8739 • E-ISSN: 1520-6688 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/pam.22592 |
| OpenAlex | W4394063591 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 68 |
This study evaluates the mental health effects of two simultaneously implemented but conflicting policies in the UK: the National Living Wage and the benefits freeze policy. We employed the Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021) DID estimator to evaluate the heterogeneous policy effects, and we found that NLW leads to positive improvements in mental health. Also, we find the negative impact of the benefits freeze policy constricts the NLW effects. Our result is robust to the sensitivity analysis of the parallel trend assumption and the comparison group definition. Additional results support the psychosocial hypothesis that increased job satisfaction is strongly correlated with improvements in mental health. Also, we found evidence of substitution effects between work hours and leisure. Overall, our findings suggest that the effects of the NLW cannot be understood in isolation from the way the entire suite of policy instruments operates on earnings and liveable income for affected low wage workers
Economics · Labour economics · Mental health · Psychiatry · Public economics · Wage · Employment and Welfare Studies · Global Health Care Issues · Health disparities and outcomes · Psychology
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| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |