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Cited by 115Mental Health Treatment and AccessEmployment and Welfare StudiesHealth Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life

Estimating the employment and earnings costs of mental illness: recent developments in the United States

Marcotte, Dave E, Wilcox-Gök, Virginia·2001·Social Science & Medicine
DOI 10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00312-9
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Abstract

Substantial attention has recently been focused on both the prevalence and consequences of mental illness. Generally, public interest in the costs of mental illness has been limited to the direct costs of treating the mentally ill. In this paper, we consider the magnitude and importance of a major component of the indirect costs of mental illness: employment and earnings losses. We first describe the technical difficulties involved in estimating these costs. We then describe new data and recent advances in the United States that have improved our ability to make such estimates. Our conclusions from the recent research are that each year in the United States 5-6 million workers between the ages of 16 and 54 lose, fail to seek, or cannot find employment as a consequence of mental illness. Among those who do work, we estimate that mental illness decreases annual income by an amount between $3,500 and $6,000. We then discuss an emerging challenge to the traditional method for arriving at such estimates: the friction cost approach. We describe both the conceptual and technical differences between the friction cost method and the traditional human capital approach. We conclude that while economic context has much to do with whether one relies on human capital or friction cost estimates, each can offer useful information about labor market losses due to mental illness.

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Crossref · 10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00312-9

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  • Personal earnings and household income of people with major depressive disorder are substantially lower than those without depression, but it is unclear whether depression is primarily a cause, consequence, or both because of reciprocal causation; previous studies have not controlled for reciprocal effects, making the size of adverse effects uncertain; childhood-adolescence depression predicts

    “One of most striking aspects of the impairment associated with MDD is that the personal earnings and household income of people with MDD are substantially lower than those of people without depression.68–73 However, it is unclear whether depression is primariry a cause, consequence, or both in these associations due to the possibility of reciprocal causation between income-earnings and MDD.74”

    From The Costs of Depression (2012) · cites this paper as [71]

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Authors
Marcotte, D. E., & Wilcox-Gök, V.
Affiliations
  • University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US)
  • Northern Illinois University (US)
Corresponding author
Marcotte, Dave E
ORCID
Marcotte, Dave E
Venue
Social Science & Medicine
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2001-07
Volume
53
Issue
1
Pages
21-27
ISSN
0277-9536 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00312-9
OpenAlex
W2030102142
Cited by
115
References
17
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 7
FWCI
4.94
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Social Science & Medicine (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (1r01mh056463-01)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH56463-01)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Mental Health Treatment and Access
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Employment and Welfare Studies
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Health Systems, Economic Evaluations, Quality of Life
Keywords
mental illness, job loss, earnings losses, human capital approach, United States
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Mental Disorders, Employment, Health Expenditures, Humans, Income, Middle Aged, Statistics as Topic, United States, Cost of Illness

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