DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS ARE NOT RELATED TO LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES IN INDONESIA

Abstract

Depressive symptoms have emerged as a notable public health threat in developing countries, so it is urgent to understand their relation to labor market outcomes. We analyzed a panel dataset of Indonesians (N=12,326 for men and N=14,410 for women) by applying a fixed effects model. We derived five measures of depressive symptoms from the short CES-D scale and considered four labor market outcomes (i.e., any attempt at or sign of being employed vs. none, positive vs. no earnings, hours of work, and earnings in the past month). We found no economically meaningful relation between depressive symptoms and labor market outcomes.