A happy home? Socio-economic inequalities in depressive symptoms and the role of housing quality in nine European countries.

BACKGROUND: This study examines the prevalence of and socio-economic inequalities in depressive symptoms in nine high-income European countries, focusing in particular on the role of housing quality. METHODS: Using the European Social Survey, a concentration index of depressive symptoms in each country is estimated. The role of housing quality is assessed by examining the risk factors associated with the concentration index, using the Recentred Influence Function method. To contextualise the housing quality results, other predictors of inequalities in depressive symptoms inequalities are also quantified and discussed. RESULTS: Our results indicate that inequalities in depressive symptoms are concentrated among poorer respondents both in each country and in total. Austria and Belgium have the lowest inequalities and France has the highest. No geographic pattern is evident. Housing problems are associated with higher inequalities in six of the nine countries in the sample. While no association is evident for indicators of socio-economic status such as years of education and income, financial strain is significant. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to estimate the degree of socio-economic inequality in depressive symptoms across European countries. The association between poor housing and poorer inequalities suggests that housing has a role to play lowering depressive symptoms inequalities.

Investigating the causal relationship between employment and informal caregiving of the elderly.

OBJECTIVE: Examining the causal relationship between employment and informal caring to date has been impeded in countries like Ireland where there is a lack of suitable panel data and/or variables for instrument construction. This paper employs propensity score matching to control for non-random selection into treatment and control groups which controls for differences in employment outcomes between carers and non-carers in Ireland using data from Quarterly National Household Survey 2009 Quarter 3. Earlier papers focus on using regression techniques which may lead to biased estimates. RESULTS: Results suggest that differences exist between carers and non-carers with respect to their employment status in Ireland. Overall the results suggest that the effects are more significant for those providing greater hours of informal care per week than those providing fewer hours of care per week. The effects estimated in this paper are likely to be more precise as failing to account for potential biases in the relationship are likely to underestimate the true effect of caring on employment outcomes. We find that propensity score matching provides an alternative method of examining the relationship when suitable panel data and/or variables for instrument construction are not available.