The Impact of the Coronavirus Lockdown on Mental Health: Evidence from the US

Abi Adams-Prassl, Teodora Boneva, Marta Golin and Christopher Rauh

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: The coronavirus outbreak has caused significant disruptions to people’s lives. We exploit variation in lockdown measures across states to document the impact of stay-at-home orders on mental health using real time survey data in the US. We find that the lockdown measures lowered mental health by 0.083 standard deviations. This large negative effect is entirely driven by women. As a result of the lockdown measures, the existing gender gap in mental health has increased by 61%. The negative effect on women’s mental health cannot be explained by an increase in financial worries or caring responsibilities.

Keywords: COVID-19; Mental health; Gender; Recessions; Coronavirus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I14 I18 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
Note: cr542
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

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Working Paper: The Impact of the Coronavirus Lockdown on Mental Health: Evidence from the US (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:2037

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