Mental Health and Wealth: Depression, Gender, Poverty, and Parenting

Abstract

Depression is a common and debilitating condition that adversely affects functioning and the capacity to work and establish economic stability. Women are disproportionately burdened by depression, and low-income pregnant and parenting women have particularly high rates of depression and often lack access to treatment. As depression can be treated, it is a modifiable risk factor for poor economic outcomes for women, and thus for children and families. Recent national and state health care policy changes offer the opportunity for community-based psychological and economic interventions that can reduce the number of pregnant and parenting women with clinically significant depressive symptoms. Moreover, there is strong evidence that in addition to benefiting women's well-being, such reforms bolster children's emotional and social development and learning and help families rise out of poverty. This review summarizes the mental health and economic literature regarding how maternal depression perpetuates intergenerational poverty and discusses recommendations regarding policies to treat maternal depression in large-scale social services systems.

The ecology of youth psychological wellbeing in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“…Importantly, interventions at each level have implications for the others. For example, just as low-income pregnant or caregiving mothers can become engaged in an escalating cycle of depressed mood and poverty, better mental health can be one pathway to employment (Smith & Mazure, 2021).…”

“…To take one example, low-income pregnant and parenting women have particularly high rates of depression even in the absence of the multisystem stressors imposed by the pandemic. Longitudinal evidence points to a negative cascade whereby economic circumstances negatively affect women’s depressive status, which, in turn, influences their future economic mobility and opportunities (Smith & Mazure, 2021). In these ways, low-income pregnant and parenting women can become mired in a cycle of escalating depression and poverty.…”

Not in the same boat

“…For the first group of more highly resourced women, school closures demarcated the marked change in worry and depressive symptoms, while for the other two groups, increased symptoms were related to food insecurity combined with other material hardships. This is not surprising as poverty and maternal depression have long been observed DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13650 to co-occur (Smith & Mazure, 2021). Another perhaps an unsurprising finding is that social support buffered the effects of the pandemic on maternal depression (Gustafsson et al, 2021).…”

Relationship between subjective well-being and depressive disorders: Novel findings of cohort variations and demographic heterogeneities

“…In addition, previous studies have shown that there are variations in mental health status across groups with different demographic characteristics. Since people’s education level can have an impact on their socio-economic status and availability of medical services, compared to those with lower education levels, respondents who have been educated to a relatively high level have more happiness and less self-reported depressive disorders ( Lai et al, 2020 ; Taple et al, 2020 ; Chrzastek et al, 2021 ) In terms of gender, previous studies have shown that women have poorer mental health and are more likely to be depressed and anxious ( Zhao et al, 2020 ; Smith and Mazure, 2021 ). Besides, since married couples share each other’s social, economic, and psychological resources ( Lindström and Rosvall, 2012 ), marriage is significantly associated with a reduction in people’s perceived anxiety and depression ( Le et al, 2020 ).…”