Mental Health and Working Conditions in Europe

Abstract

The authors investigate recent patterns in mental health at the workplace across 15 European countries using three waves of the European Working Conditions Survey. Their study shows that adverse working conditions, defined in terms of job demands and job hazards, are strongly associated with workers' mental health problems, and it also finds a causal effect of job quality on workers' mental health. Their analysis detects heterogeneous effects across countries and demographic groups and shows that labor market regulations and health care systems explain some of these crosscountry differences.