Are certain groups more impacted by money and mental health issues?
This review discusses mental health issues and how they are unevenly distributed among UK adults. Some groups are more vulnerable to mental health and financial challenges, including young people, renters, families with disabled members, and women and minorities, who face the “double stigma”. Distinct challenges also emerge, for example: women’s mental health treatment rarely considers financial effects, and there are a number of complex factors relating to ethnicity.
Context:
Reported levels of depression or anxiety are currently at the highest levels since 2009 and, as of October 2022, high feelings of anxiety are worse than pre-pandemic levels.1 But this high level of unease is not felt evenly across UK adults. Evidence shows that certain groups of adults are more likely to experience mental health and financial challenges, both creating a vicious cycle that is difficult to escape.
This review brings together evidence about 1) which groups of people are more likely to be affected by mental health and/or financial challenges; and 2) what the research tells us about these challenges.
Which groups are more likely to be affected by mental health and financial challenges?
Some evidence points to certain groups of people that are more likely to be exposed to financial hardship, with knock-on effects on mental health, and vice versa (and most of this evidence relates to those experiencing common mental disorders rather than severe ones):
-
Young people, renters, and those who have children living with them are more likely to be affected by mental health challenges.2
-
Households with at least one disabled family member reported worsening mental health as a result of the cost of living increases.3
-
Women and minoritised groups are particularly susceptible to the “double stigma”, which is the perceived negativity associated with facing both mental health and financial challenges.
-
Women with mental health challenges are also more likely to be financially burdened than men with mental health problems, and also more likely to say the cost of living is having a negative impact on their mental health.4
-
Minoritised groups may also face additional burdens to mental health such as trauma, grief, isolation bullying and racism.5
-
Middle-aged unemployed males are also much more likely to have considered or made an attempt to end their own life.6
-
Renters and those without savings in particular are up to twice as likely to be distressed than their counterparts.7 Renters are also more likely to experience depressive symptoms.8
-
The prevalence of depressive symptoms is higher in the following groups of adults: economically inactive, unpaid carers for 35 or more hours a week, disabled adults, those in the most deprived areas of England, young adults aged 16-29, single person households, and women.9
What else does research tell us about these groups?
Research highlights the unique experiences of some groups:
-
Women are less likely to have been asked as part of their mental health treatment whether their condition affected their financial circumstances.10
-
Ethnicity has been highlighted as a complex factor, when investigating the relationship of mental health and financial challenges.
- Some evidence suggests that there is a difference in the prevalence of mental health conditions across different ethnicity groups, but only for women, and only for particular diagnoses such as depression and panic disorders which, again, are only more prevalent amongst black, Asian and mixed or other ethnic groups.11
- These differences could be related to differences in patterns of seeking help for mental health issues across gender, cultural or ethnic backgrounds.12
- Several recent publications point towards those from a mixed ethnic background having lower overall financial wellbeing in several ways, for example saving less frequently.13
- Minoritised groups are also more likely to experience poverty and deprivation (i.e. lower incomes, employment, inequalities and compounding effects of deprivation) all of which may have consequences for mental health.14
What next?
Did you find this review helpful? We would like to know what you think. Please contact us at [email protected] with your feedback, and any suggestions for further research or evaluation that should be included in future updates.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the Centre for Personal Financial Wellbeing at Aston University for their contributions to our thematic reviews within the mental health space.
Bibliography
Aston University, ‘Money and Mental Health Rapid Evidence Review’, July 2023
Office for National Statistics, ‘UK Measures of National Well-being Dashboard’, August 2023
Office for National Statistics, ‘Cost of living and depression in adults, Great Britain’, September 2022
