Job loss and mental health during the COVID-19 lockdown: Evidence from South Africa.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Existing literature on how employment loss affects depression has struggled to address potential endogeneity bias caused by reverse causality. The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique natural experiment because the source of unemployment is very likely to be exogenous to the individual. This study assessed the effect of job loss and job furlough on the mental health of individuals in South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Data and methods

The data for the study came from the first and second waves of the national survey, the National Income Dynamics-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), conducted during May-June and July-August 2020, respectively. The sample for NIDS-CRAM was drawn from an earlier national survey, conducted in 2017, which had collected dat

SUBMITTER: Posel D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8009396 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature