The Psychosocial Value of Employment

Hussam, Reshmaan; Kelley, Erin; Lane, Gregory; Zahra, Fatima

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3870926

Cited by 4 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…One possible reason is that participants in the control group in our study also participated in social gatherings on a weekly basis (which is mostly muted in existing studies), and as social interaction has a positive impact on people's mental health (Nezlek et al, 1994), improvements in the mental well-being of our control group participants may have reduced the size of the impact. However, even with a placebo, our effect sizes are largely comparable to the effect sizes of a recent non-therapeutic study conducted on the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh (Hussam et al, 2021).…”

Section: Impact Of the Intervention On Motherssupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Specifically, mothers that received psychosocial support experienced a 0.23 standard deviation (SD) reduction in trauma and a 0.14 SD reduction in depression relative to mothers in the control group that did not receive the psychosocial intervention. Among the mothers that were identified to have trauma and depression at baseline, we observe a sizeable improvement in their mental well-being-effects that are comparable to the short-run impacts of recent interventions targeting the mental health in poor settings (Hussam et al, 2021;Barker et al, 2021). In addition, treated mothers also experienced an improvement in their self-reported level of happiness (0.12 SD) and sense of belongingness in the host community (0.18 SD) following the intervention, but we do not find any noticeable impact on their aspirations for the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Similar to our context,Hussam et al (2021) offered eight-weeks long employment opportunities to Rohingyas living in refugee camps in Bangladesh and finds that the mental benefits from being employed surpasses the mental benefits of receiving cash transfers among the refugees.…”

mentioning

confidence: 60%

“…However, each mother-volunteer was only responsible for roughly 7 mother-child pairs and, we believe, this workload (i.e., calling 7 mothers once or twice a week) did not generate additional mental burden for mother-volunteers during the lockdown. In fact, a recent study by Hussam et al (2021) on the Rohingya refugees suggests that employment within refugee camps can itself improve the mental well-being of refugees. We, however, did not measure the mental health of mother-volunteers during or after the intervention; therefore, our take on the mental cost of mother-volunteers is only speculative.…”

Section: Mediation Analysis To Understand Impacts On Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In all, we contribute to several strands of literature. First, the emerging literature on the impacts of psycho-and non-psycho-therapeutic interventions on mental health, behavioral change, and economic decision-making and outcomes (Bolton et al, 2003;Blattman et al, 2017;Baranov et al, 2020;Haushofer et al, 2020;Angelucci & Bennett, 2021;Hussam et al, 2021;Vlassopoulos et al, 2021;Barker et al, 2021),. 3 Second, our paper is also related to the literature on the effect of health, parenting, and maternal mental health on early childhood development (Patel et al, 2004;Bhalotra et al, 2020;Attanasio et al, 2020;Baranov et al, 2020;Cappelen et al, 2020;Doyle, 2020), as well as the literature on the intergenerational transmission of mental health, such as depression and trauma (Ahlburg, 1998;Ackard et al, 2006;Johnston et al, 2013;Gonçalves et al, 2016;Eyal & Burns, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees

Siddique¹,

Islam²,

Mozumder³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Forced displacement is a major driver of mental disorders among refugees worldwide. Poor mental health of adult refugees, particularly mothers, is also considered a risk factor for the psychological well-being and development of their children. In this study, we experimentally examine the extent to which a multifaceted psychosocial program improves the mental well-being of refugee mothers, and facilitates growth and development among children under the age of two. In partnership with BRAC, we ran a cluster randomized controlled trial on 3,500 Rohingya mother-child dyads in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Participants were given weekly psychosocial support for a year that includes psychoeducation and parenting support for mothers and play activities for both mothers and children. The intervention was largely successful and led to: (i) reductions in the psychological trauma and depression severity of mothers and children, (ii) improvements in communication, gross-motor, problem-solving, and social skills of children, and (iii) reductions in stunting, underweight, and wasting among children in the treatment group. The intervention also caused the mental health of children to be more aligned with the mental health of their mothers, implying policies targeting the mental well-being of displaced mothers can be an important stepping stone to developing psychological resilience among their children, which can help them grow into well-rounded, healthy adults.

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Section: Impact Of the Intervention On Motherssupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 55%

mentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Mediation Analysis To Understand Impacts On Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees

Siddique¹,

Islam²,

Mozumder³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Insurance as an instrument of financial security in addressing mental illness among agricultural workers in the LMICs

Agarwal

Gupta

Singh

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Introduction: Agriculture is a high-risk occupation globally, with risk intensities being higher in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). Formal risk-mitigation instruments are absent in LMICs. Prevalence of financial insecurity often acts as a prominent stressor predisposing to various mental illnesses among the agrarian workers in LMICs. Aims: We review the existing scientific evidence from LMICs on the role of insurance in improving the mental health of rural workers. Our research identifies the different insurance interventions available for agrarian or rural workers in LMICs, and review their effectiveness - overall and across sub-groups in preventing the development of mental illnesses or reducing existing ones. Methodology: Our review included both peer and non-peer-reviewed literature. We involved people with lived experience (PWLE) that included farmers, workers, NGOs and health workers, policy researchers etc. with experiences from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Peru, and South Africa. Inputs from PWLE helped in defining our key concepts for the study and in curating a list of keywords for literature search. We identified 79 articles of which we reviewed 47 articles that reported effectiveness of financial interventions, primarily Cash transfer (CT), Pension and Health insurance, Workfare and Microfinance on the mental health of rural workers in LMICs. A cash transfer (CT) is a direct transfer payment of money to an eligible person. Unlike Unconditional CT (UCT), conditional CT (CCT) are conditional upon completing specific actions beyond being eligible for CT such as sending children to school or making regular health visits. Microfinance is provision of banking service to individuals or groups who otherwise would have no access to financial services. Workfare program require participants to perform usually public-service work to receive payment. Insights from PWLE: We learned from PWLE that it is hard to distinguish between self and wage employment as workers are engaged in multiple livelihood activities, and similarly between rural and urban workers due to seasonal migration. Workers continue to work in old age as there is no concept of retirement. PWLE reported that public assistance program whether they supplement income or consumption are beneficial. Access to low cost credit enhances financial security as most workers operate in highly credit-constrained environments. Key findings: (i) Pension and health insurance led to a significant reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety among workers, particularly among the elderly. (ii) Workfare participation led to a reduction in depression among women by increasing income security. However, in addition to financial security, non-pecuniary benefits of employment were also observed among the unemployed refugee men. (iii) CT led to a reduction in suicides among farmers during adverse income shocks, and in general improved mental health of recipients. However, when the recipients perceived CT as stigmatizing or perceived the compliance condition (as in CCT) as an additional burden, the effects of CT on mental health were negative. (iv) Microfinance schemes had mixed effects on mental health of the participants, primarily women. While it led to a reduction in depression and anxiety, loan repayment was often reported to be stressful. Recommendation for practice: Mental health should be incorporated as an additional welfare parameter in the cost-benefit analysis of policy evaluation as evidence suggest that higher income or consumption do not necessarily improve mental health. While pension and health insurance can bring in positive changes in mental health of workers, CT and microfinance schemes are no silver bullets for improving psychological well-being. CT and microfinance interventions can have an adverse effect on mental health of recipients which depend upon their design and delivery. Recommendation for research: We believe that lack of mental health data largely inhibits evidence-based research on mental health. For example, we did not find any study that evaluated agricultural insurance or price support scheme in spite of these having existed in LMICs for some time now. Evaluation of existing insurance interventions on parameters of mental health is only possible if data collection on mental health variables are encouraged.

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Outcomes for Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees in Low and Middle-Income Countries

Schuettler¹,

Do²

2023

Policy Research Working Papers

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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The Psychosocial Value of Employment

Cited by 4 publications

References 50 publications

Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees

Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees

Insurance as an instrument of financial security in addressing mental illness among agricultural workers in the LMICs

Outcomes for Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees in Low and Middle-Income Countries

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