Decomposition Analysis of Differences in Depressive Symptoms between Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Workers in China

Abstract

Background: Chinese workers are confronted with severe mental health issues. This study aimed to investigate the reasons for the differences in depressive symptoms between agricultural and non-agricultural workers in China, and to measure the contribution of relevant influencing factors. Methods: The data used in this study came from the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data. We used the brief 8-item Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-8) to measure participants’ depressive symptoms, and Fairlie decomposition model was used to analyze the influencing factors for the differences in depressive symptoms between agricultural and non-agricultural workers and their contribution. Results: The percentage of employed people with depressive symptoms was 14.45%. The percentage of agricultural workers (18.71%) with depressive symptoms was higher than that of non-agricultural workers (11.33%).The results of Fairlie decomposition analysis showed that 74.59% of the differences in depressive symptoms between agricultural and non-agricultural workers was due to observed factors, which were education level (39.58%), self-rated health (25.72%), marital status (-23.80%), residence (12.19%), job satisfaction (8.31%), chronic disease (5.64%), gender (5.14%), life satisfaction (3.47%) , and body mass index (-1.26%) (all p<0.05). Conclusions: The percentage of depressive symptoms was higher in agricultural than in non-agricultural workers, which was primarily associated with differences in socioeconomic status and health status factors between agricultural and non-agricultural workers.