Social Class and Mental Health in Contemporary British Fiction

Author(s):  
Simon Lee
Author(s):  
M. Harvey Brenner

The Great Depression saw increasingly higher rates of mental disorder at successively lower social class levels. These findings have been repeated over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Dynamic interpretations of these relations have concentrated on vulnerability to economic crises, resulting in major increases in mental hospitalization and suicide. These studies have shown psychological morbidity and suicide to be strongly influenced by employment and income loss. Did the Great Recession re-enact the Great Depression’s mental health crisis for world societies? Recent literature shows substantially elevated psychological disorder in the Great Recession across industrialized societies. New multivariate analyses, using gross domestic product declines and unemployment increases as the main recessional indicators, find that world suicide and industrialized country overall mortality rates increased owing to the Great Recession and government austerity. A paradigm is presented of the circular relations linking economic crises, social class, and the interactive relations of mental and physical health.


Sex Roles ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (9-10) ◽  
pp. 319-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin D. Mickelson ◽  
Emily Hazlett

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theocharis Kromydas ◽  
Michael J Green ◽  
Peter Craig ◽  
Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi ◽  
Alastair H Leyland ◽  
...  

Objectives The COVID−19 pandemic has substantially affected workers mental health. We investigated changes in UK workers mental health by industry, social class, and occupation and differential effects by UK country of residence, gender and age. Methods We used representative Understanding Society data from 6,474 adults (41,207 observations) in paid employment who participated in pre−pandemic (2017−2020) and at least one COVID-19 survey. The outcome was psychological distress (General Health Questionnaire-12; score≥4). Exposures were industry, social class and occupation and are examined separately. Mixed−effects logistic regression was used to estimate relative (OR) and absolute (%) increases in distress before and during pandemic. Differential effects were investigated for UK countries of residence (Non−England/England), gender (Male/female), and age (Younger/Older) using 3−way interaction effects. Results Psychological distress increased in relative terms most for professional, scientific and technical (OR:3.15, 95% CI 2.17−4.59) industry in the pandemic versus pre−pandemic period. Absolute risk increased most in hospitality (+11.4%). For social class, small employers/self−employed were most affected in relative and absolute terms (OR:3.24, 95% CI 2.28− 4.63; +10.3%). Across occupations Sales and customer service (OR:3.01, 95% CI 1.61− 5.62; +10.7%) had the greatest increase. Analysis with 3−way interactions showed considerable gender differences, while for UK country of residence and age results are mixed. Conclusions Psychological distress increases during the COVID−19 pandemic were concentrated among professional and technical and hospitality industries, small employers/self−employed and sales and customers service workers. Female workers often exhibited greater differences in risk by industry and occupation. Policies supporting these industries and groups are needed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujie Zhang

Abstract Background Many previous studies have proved that positive psychology can promote mental health. However, little is known about how and when it promotes mental health in older adults. Methods The data of this study were sourced from the 2017 wave of Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), involving 1,537 older adults aged 60 and above. OLS regression model was used to explore the impact of positive psychology on mental health of the elderly. Moreover, stata 16.0 was used to measure the moderating effect of individualism on the relationship between positive psychology and mental health. Results After controlling for demographic characteristics, socio-economic status and lifestyle factors, the regression results suggest that positive psychology was associated with mental health (coefficient = 0.112, p < 0.01). In addition, the positive relationship was significantly stronger for people who were older, married, lived in urban areas, with higher education and higher subjective social class position, and higher exercise frequency. Moreover, the moderating effect analysis results suggest that individualism strengthened the relationship between positive psychology and mental health. Conclusions This study reveals that positive psychology has a positive effect on mental health among the elderly, and the positive health effect shows significant age, marital status, living areas, education background, social class position and physical exercise inequalities. Furthermore, this study also provides new evidence indicating that individualism positively moderates the relationship between positive psychology and mental health. Promoting positive psychology can be a promising way for China to promote psychological care for the elderly in the future.


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