First depressed, then discriminated against?

Abstract

Each year a substantial share of the European population suffers from major depression. This mental illness may affect individuals' later life outcomes indirectly by the stigma it inflicts. The present study assesses hiring discrimination based on disclosed depression.To this end, between May 2015 and July 2015, we sent out 288 trios of job applications from fictitious candidates to real vacancies in Belgium. Within each trio, one candidate claimed to have become unemployed only recently, whereas the other two candidates revealed former depression or no reason at all for their unemployment during a full year. Disclosing a year of inactivity due to former depression decreases the probability of getting a job interview invitation by about 34% when compared with candidates 2 who just became unemployed, but the stigma effect of a year of depression is not significantly higher than the stigma effect of a year of unexplained unemployment. In addition, we found that these stigmas of depression and unemployment were driven by our male trios of fictitious candidates. As a consequence, our results are in favour of further research on gender heterogeneity in the stigma of depression and other health impairments.

The impact of the UK National Minimum Wage on mental health

“…In line with this, the relationship between employment and mental health has received growing attention in the literature ( Baert et al, 2016 , Greve and Nielsen, 2013 , Paul and Moser, 2009 , Tefft, 2012 ). Previous studies indicate that they appear to influence each other.…”

It’s not what you do, it’s why you do it: Motives for disclosure and concealment decisions among employees with depression

“…Depression remains a stigmatized identity (Peluso & Blay, 2009; Wood et al., 2014), particularly in the workplace where stereotypes of individuals with depression as lazy, incompetent, emotional, or crazy (Follmer & Jones, 2017) conflict with the image of the ideal worker who is fully committed to and productive in their work role (Reid, 2011). The stigmatization of depression can also lead to negative workplace outcomes for those diagnosed with this disorder including discrimination (Baert et al., 2016). Indeed, prior work has demonstrated that managers have concerns about hiring individuals with mental illness, such as depression (Hand & Tryssenaar, 2006).…”

How does labour market history influence the access to hiring interviews?

“…Correspondence studies are best suited to measure the effect of an individual characteristic on the chances of getting a job (Baert et al , 2016; Riach and Rich, 2002; Neumark, 2012, 2016). It consists in building fictitious applications that are practically identical apart from the trait whose effect we want to evaluate, and then to send them simultaneously in response to the same job offers.…”