Social Stratification, Welfare, and Social Policy Seminar, at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).

Maurice Gesthuizen, Radboud University presents "Reciprocal relations between economic deprivation and mental health problems: the mitigating role of coping resources".

This is an in-person only event.

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Abstract

In this seminar, I will first present the findings of a research recently published in Social Science & Medicine, titled: “Reciprocal relations between financial hardship, sense of societal belonging and mental health for social assistance recipients”. Drawing on three-wave panel data (N = 348) from a social experiment in the municipality of Nijmegen, the Netherlands, which ran from December 2017 to January 2020, and using cross-lagged panel models, the findings show that financial hardship and sense of societal belonging did not predict change in recipients' mental health. A better mental health at baseline, in contrast, predicted an increase in sense of societal belonging one and two years later. In addition, both a better mental health and a stronger sense of societal belonging at baseline predicted a decrease in financial hardship one year later, but this relation was not found between other waves. These findings emphasize that improving recipients’ mental health may be a promising policy strategy to improve their situation. This being a study among a group of citizens in highly disadvantaged economic positions, and among which problems likely have accumulated over years of hardship, it is relevant to take a step back. Questions arise (1) as to what extent economic deprivation and mental health problems are reciprocally related among the general population, and (2) as to what extent the availability of personal and social coping resources might cushion the expected average increase in mental health problems due to economic deprivation, and vice versa, the expected average increase in economic deprivation due to mental health problems. The findings of this study, which I will present in the second part of the seminar, will provide insights in the processes of the accumulation of economic, social and health problems, and as such tools to prevent situations of accumulation that can be found among highly disadvantaged groups such as social assistance recipients. Using three waves (2019-2021) of the Dutch LISS-panel (N=2981), cross-lagged panel models, in which interactions with coping resources are integrated, will be estimated to provide answers to these questions.