Mental health and labour productivity

Nigel Rice; Jennifer Roberts; Cristina Sechel

doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107075

Mental health and labour productivity

Nigel Rice, Jennifer Roberts, Cristina Sechel

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

We present novel evidence of the effect of mental health on productivity using a direct measure of productivity from the COVID-19 modules of the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We employ spatial variation in COVID-19 deaths as an instrumental variable and supplement results by computing bounds by considering coefficient stability to observable factors to infer the influence of unobservables. Our findings reveal a substantive positive relationship between poor mental health and decreased productivity. Our estimates suggest productivity losses of around 54 minutes per week (on average) for individuals who report a decline in mental health.

Original language	English
Article number	107075
Journal	Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
Volume	236
Early online date	21 Jun 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107075
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 21 Jun 2025

Bibliographical note

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107075

MH and Productivity
© 2025 Elsevier B.V. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University’s Research Publications and Open Access policy.
Accepted author manuscript, 488 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{a47f577b1c214846a58408e024b6d568,

title = "Mental health and labour productivity",

abstract = "We present novel evidence of the effect of mental health on productivity using a direct measure of productivity from the COVID-19 modules of the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We employ spatial variation in COVID-19 deaths as an instrumental variable and supplement results by computing bounds by considering coefficient stability to observable factors to infer the influence of unobservables. Our findings reveal a substantive positive relationship between poor mental health and decreased productivity. Our estimates suggest productivity losses of around 54 minutes per week (on average) for individuals who report a decline in mental health.",

author = "Nigel Rice and Jennifer Roberts and Cristina Sechel",

note = "{\textcopyright} 2025 Elsevier B.V. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the University{\textquoteright}s Research Publications and Open Access policy.",

year = "2025",

month = jun,

day = "21",

doi = "10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107075",

language = "English",

volume = "236",

journal = "Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization",

issn = "0167-2681",

publisher = "Elsevier",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Mental health and labour productivity

AU - Rice, Nigel

AU - Roberts, Jennifer

AU - Sechel, Cristina

PY - 2025/6/21

Y1 - 2025/6/21

N2 - We present novel evidence of the effect of mental health on productivity using a direct measure of productivity from the COVID-19 modules of the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We employ spatial variation in COVID-19 deaths as an instrumental variable and supplement results by computing bounds by considering coefficient stability to observable factors to infer the influence of unobservables. Our findings reveal a substantive positive relationship between poor mental health and decreased productivity. Our estimates suggest productivity losses of around 54 minutes per week (on average) for individuals who report a decline in mental health.

AB - We present novel evidence of the effect of mental health on productivity using a direct measure of productivity from the COVID-19 modules of the UK Household Longitudinal Study. We employ spatial variation in COVID-19 deaths as an instrumental variable and supplement results by computing bounds by considering coefficient stability to observable factors to infer the influence of unobservables. Our findings reveal a substantive positive relationship between poor mental health and decreased productivity. Our estimates suggest productivity losses of around 54 minutes per week (on average) for individuals who report a decline in mental health.

U2 - 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107075

DO - 10.1016/j.jebo.2025.107075

M3 - Article

SN - 0167-2681

VL - 236

JO - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

JF - Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization

M1 - 107075

ER -