The effect of unemployment on mental health

Sixteen recent longitudinal studies are examined for evidence relevant to t he claim that a change to one's employment status affects one's mental heal th. Although there were Limitations to the set of studies examined, most of the studies supported this claimed relationship. Examination was then made of the size of this effect. In carrying out this examination, the set of s tudy results were divided into two categories: (a) those addressing the que stion of the extent to which gaining employment impacts on mental well-bein g; (b) those addressing the question of the extent to which employment loss impacts on mental health. The meta-analyses indicated that there was a wei ghted effect size of .54 for the first question, and a smaller weighted eff ect size (.36) for the latter question.