The relationships between adverse life events, depression, economic activities, and human capital investment in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the links between adverse events, depression, and decision-making in Nigeria. It investigates how events such as conflicts, shocks, and deaths of family members can affect short-term mental health, as well as longer-term decisions on economic activities and human capital investments. First, the findings show that exposure to conflict has the largest and strongest relationship with depression, associated with a 21-26 percentage point increase in the probability of depressive symptomatology. Second, depression is associated with lower labour force participation, child educational investment, and annual per capita income, holding constant covariates such as exposure to adverse events. People with depressive symptoms are 8 percentage points less likely to work. In addition, parents exhibiting depressive symptoms spend 18% less on their children’s education. These findings show the links between adverse events and important outcomes such as labour and education through mental health. As such, policymakers must consider both the direct and indirect effects that adverse events – particularly conflicts – and depression can have on welfare.

KEYWORDS:

• depression
• conflicts
• Nigeria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This is prior to conversion to a logarithmic form in the analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryoko Sato

Ryoko Sato, PhD, is a Research Associate at the Global Health and Population Department and at the Center for Health Decision Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is a development economist, interested in health behavioral changes and health outcome improvements in cost-effective ways in low- and middle-income countries. Her research focuses on three main areas: [1] Evaluation of interventions to induce health behavioral changes through rigorous causal studies such as randomized controlled trials; [2] Investigation of determinants of health outcomes and disparities, mainly using secondary data; [3] Cost analysis and Cost-effectiveness analysis of health interventions and policies. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Julian Jamison

Julian Jamison spent nine years in the public sector, within the US government - the Boston Fed followed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - and then the World Bank, before returning to academia to join the University of Exeter in 2018. In addition to having previously served as an assistant professor at Northwestern University (Kellogg School of Management), Julian has spent time as a fellow and/or visiting faculty member at UC Berkeley (Public Health); UC San Francisco (Medical School); University of Southern California (Psychology); Caltech (Social Science); HEC Paris (Finance); Yale (Economics); and Harvard (Kennedy School of Government). Julian’s work has been published in academic journals spanning a wide range of disciplines, and it has been mentioned in media outlets such as The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Forbes, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and The Economist. He has consulted for the US National Institute of Mental Health, NASA, the US Army, Bates White, Lockheed-Martin, and GiveWell. Julian has traveled to roughly 90 countries, and he once received a special award in physics at the 1987 science fair in Washington, DC.

Kevin McGee

Kevin McGee is an Economist with the Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) team in the Development Data Group of the World Bank. His primary areas of research include poverty, agriculture, and health. He also specializes in survey design, methodology, and implementation. As a member of the LSMS–ISA team, he currently supervises ongoing survey activities in Nigeria and supports activities in Ethiopia. He completed his PhD in economics at American University in 2014.

Gbemisola Oseni

Gbemisola Oseni is a Senior Economist with the Living Standard Measurement Study (LSMS) team in the Development Data Group of the World Bank. Her current research interests are in the areas of poverty, labor, agriculture and rural development, as well as data collection methods and measurement issues. As a member of the LSMS team, she is an expert in the design, implementation and analysis of household surveys. She coordinates the country programs under the LSMS-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) project and oversees the project activities in Nigeria and Ethiopia. She completed her Ph.D. in Economics from American University.

Julie Perng

Julie Perng is a statistician/economist at Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. She is an applied economist with 13+ years of experience in data management and analysis; project management/communications; survey design, training, and implementation; impact evaluations; operational work; client engagement; and research methods. She has extensive experience with proposal development, fundraising, and published research, and am a Fulbright alumna currently leading research projects in behavioral and development economics. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Tomomi Tanaka

Tomomi Tanaka is a Head of Safety, Risk, and Compliance, Behavioral Economist at Uber Japan. Prior to joining Uber, she was a Senior Economist at the World Bank. Having trained in experimental economics and behavioral economics, she provides advice to governments on data collection, survey design, economic analysis, poverty reduction strategies and policy effectiveness. Prior to joining the World Bank, Tomomi was an Assistant Professor at Arizona State University, a Specially Approved Associate Professor at Keio University, and a Research Fellow of the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. She taught behavioral economics and game theory at the Ph.D. level. Her research has been published in top journals such as the American Economic Review, Games and Economic Behavior, the Economic Journal, and Experimental Economics. She received the Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize for the most promising young economists from Nikkei, was identified as one of “25 Girls of the Next Generation” by Nikkei Woman Magazine, and was selected as a Woman of the Year for 2014. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Hawaii and was a post-doctorate at the California Institute of Technology.