Inequality and the association between involuntary job loss and depressive symptoms

Although socioeconomic status (SES) has been to shown to be associated with susceptibility to involuntary job loss as well as with health, the ways in which individual SES indicators may moderate the job loss-health association remain underexplored. Using data from the Americans' Changing Lives study, we estimate the ways in which the association between job loss and depressive symptoms depends on five aspects of SES: education, income, occupational prestige, wealth, and homeownership. Our findings indicate that higher SES prior to job loss is not uniformly associated with fewer depressive symptoms. Higher education and lower prestige appear to buffer the health impacts of job loss, while financial indicators do not. These results have a number of implications for understanding the multidimensional role that social inequality plays in shaping the health effects of job loss.

► Little research has examined the ways pre-existing inequalities shape the health effects of involuntary job loss.
► Higher SES prior to job loss is not uniformly associated with fewer depressive symptoms.
► Status aspects of SES are moderators: Higher educational attainment and lower occupational prestige buffer the mental health effects of job loss.
► In contrast, class aspects of SES do not appear to moderate the relationship: income and wealth do not have a significant effect.