Recession Hardships, Powerlessness, and the Amplification of Psychological Distress

• In Event: 3129 - Section on Medical Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 19. Contextual Effects on Mental Health

Abstract

Stressful life events are commonly assumed to be responsible for changes in psychological distress in the context of economic downturns, but relatively few studies test these pathways empirically, and even fewer account for the broad range of employment, financial, and housing related hardships individuals nay face during turbulent times (Burgard and Kalousova 2015). The present study provides new insights about the connection between recessions and mental health by investigating whether 1) the number of recession-related hardships matter for changes in distress within individuals over time, and 2) perceptions of powerlessness both mediate and amplify the association between recession hardships and changes in distress. To achieve these objectives, this study draws on two waves of a large national survey—the Midlife in the United States study (MIDUS; N=2,077)—that were collected before (2005/2006) and after (2013/2014) the Great Recession in America. OLS with lagged depend variable models produce three major findings. First, net of a wide range of social and demographic characteristics, more recession-related hardships lead to greater increases in both powerlessness and distress between waves. Second, adjusting for changes in powerlessness partly explains the association between recession hardships and changes in distress. Third, changes in powerlessness magnify the association between recession hardships and changes in psychological distress—hardships are more distressing for individuals that report greater increases powerlessness. Taken together, these patterns support the structural amplification hypotheses.

Author

• Jonathan Koltai, Bocconi University