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1. Working from Home and Mental Well-being in the EU at Different Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Gendered Look at Key Mediators

Author:
Sandra Leitner
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
This paper analyses the relationship between working from home (WFH) and mental well-being at different stages during the first two critical years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when governments repeatedly imposed lockdowns and enacted WFH mandates to contain the spread of the virus. Using data from a representative survey conducted at four different time periods in 2020 (first lockdown, subsequent gradual reopening), 2021 (further lockdown) and 2022 (restrictions widely lifted) in the 27 EU member states, it examines the potentially changing role of several mediators over time, such as work-family conflict, family-work conflict, stability, resilience, isolation, the importance of different support networks, workload, physical risk of contracting COVID-19 at work, and housing conditions. For the first lockdown, it also differentiates by previous WFH experience, in terms of WFH novices and experienced WFH workers. It differentiates by gender, in order to take the potential gendered nature and effect of COVID-19 measures into account. The results show that while there was no direct relationship between WFH and mental well-being, there are several important mediators whose relevance was specific not only to certain stages of the pandemic, but also to previous experience with WFH and gender. Stability is the only mediator that was relevant over the entire two-year pandemic period. Work-family conflict and family-work conflict were only relevant during the first lockdown, while resilience and isolation mattered especially when most of the EU economies had lifted most of their restrictions. Unlike established WFH workers, WFH novices had an advantage during the first lockdown, benefiting from lower family-work conflict and more helpful networks of family and friends. Moreover, our results differ by gender: for females who undertook WFH, important mediators were work-family conflict and family-work conflict. Both were related to adjustments they had to make in work and non-work hours in response to the enforced closure of schools and childcare facilities during the lockdowns, especially during the first. For males who undertook WFH, especially WFH novices, support from networks of family and friends was an important mediator.
Topic:
Labor Issues, European Union, Mental Health, COVID-19, Well-Being, and Working from Home
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

2. Development of Mental Distress of Refugees in Austria During their Economic and Social Integration in 2017-2022

Author:
Sebastian Leitner
Publication Date:
11-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
Refugees are more likely to develop mental diseases as most of them have been exposed to potentially traumatic events and fundamental stressors in their home countries, during migration and after resettling in the host countries. This diminishes their prospects for social and economic integration, which also may have detrimental effects on their mental health. We examine the prevalence of mental disorders in the refugee population from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria who arrived in Austria recently, drawing on data from four waves of the FIMAS refugee survey project. Interviews were conducted between December 2017 and April 2022 in Austria, with a specific focus on Vienna, Salzburg, Graz, Linz and Innsbruck. We found a high share of refugees (31% in 2017/2018, declining to 26% in 2022) who showed moderate or severe levels of mental distress. Women were found to have a significantly higher risk of mental illness. We also investigate the effects of mediators on mental health, applying pooled and panel regression model. A positive association was found, for example, in the cases of discrimination experienced in Austria and obviously potentially traumatic events experienced during migration. Negative correlations were detected for certain mitigating factors that foster resilience, such as proficiency in the German language, living in the same household with one’s partner and children, being employed, having more supportive relationships, and being more satisfied with the housing situation.
Topic:
Refugees, Mental Health, Integration, Labor Market, and Social Integration
Political Geography:
Europe and Austria

3. Governing Habits: Treating Alcoholism in the Post-Soviet Clinic, Eugene Raikhel

Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Critics of narcology—as addiction medicine is called in Russia—decry it as being "backward," hopelessly behind contemporary global medical practices in relation to addiction and substance abuse, and assume that its practitioners lack both professionalism and expertise. On the basis of his research in a range of clinical institutions managing substance abuse in St. Petersburg, Eugene Raikhel increasingly came to understand that these assumptions and critiques obscured more than they revealed. Governing Habits is an ethnography of extraordinary sensitivity and awareness that shows how therapeutic practice and expertise is expressed in the highly specific, yet rapidly transforming milieu of hospitals, clinics, and rehabilitation centers in post Soviet Russia. Rather than interpreting narcology as a Soviet survival or a local clinical world on the wane in the face of globalizing evidence-based medicine, Raikhel examines the transformation of the medical management of alcoholism in Russia over the past twenty years. Raikhel's book is more than a story about the treatment of alcoholism. It is also a gripping analysis of the many cultural, institutional, political, and social transformations taking place in the post-Soviet world, particularly in Putin's Russia. Governing Habits will appeal to a wide range of readers, from medical anthropologists, clinicians, to scholars of post-Soviet Russia, to students of institutions and organizational change, to those interested in therapies and treatments of substance abuse, addiction, and alcoholism.
Topic:
Health, Mental Health, Alcohol, Post-Soviet Space, and Addiction
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

4. Russia's Invasion of Ukraine: Reflections on Historical and Psychological Dimensions

Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Mariam Antadze will discuss the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and its mental health and psychosocial implications on communities. Focusing on how war affects mental health and psychosocial development facilitates a better understanding of trauma experienced by people who are directly or indirectly affected. Among the topics Antadze will discuss: Russia's post-Soviet invasions chronologically; what we have learned from Russia's war in Georgia; understanding how sociopolitical and psychological factors interact in war trauma; psycho- and mental health needs that arise from war; and justice as a healing factor.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Strategy, Mental Health, Health Crisis, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Europe and Ukraine

5. Mental Health Conditions and Substance Use: Comparing U.S. Needs and Treatment Capacity with Those in Other High-Income Countries

Author:
Melinda K. Abrams, Reginald D. Williams II, Katharine Fields, and Roosa Tikkanen
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
About one-quarter of U.S. adults report having a mental health diagnosis such as anxiety or depression or experiencing emotional distress. This is one of the highest rates among 11 high-income countries. While U.S. adults are among the most willing to seek professional help for emotional distress, they are among the most likely to report access or affordability issues. Emotional distress is associated with social and economic needs in all countries. Nearly half of U.S. adults who experience emotional distress report such worries, a higher share than seen in other countries. The United States has some of the worst mental health–related outcomes, including the highest suicide rate and second-highest drug-related death rate. The U.S. has a relatively low supply of mental health workers, particularly psychologists and psychiatrists. Just one-third of U.S. primary care practices have mental health professionals on their team, compared to more than 90 percent in the Netherlands and Sweden.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Mental Health, Drugs, and Substance Abuse
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Global Focus

6. Residential Institutions for Disabled People in Russia: Two Models of Care

Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Please join us for an event in our Work of Care in Russia speaker series, a talk with Anna Klepikova, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the European University at St. Petersburg, and author of I Must Be A Fool (European University Press, 2018). Moderated by Svetlana Borodina (Harriman Institute). Anna Klepikova’s dissertation field research was conducted in two residential institutions for people with disabilities in St. Petersburg. Klepikova was inspired to study institutional disability care after watching an NGO volunteer recruitment ad about an orphanage for children with disabilities. She decided to learn more about the volunteers’ motivations and experience by joining them as a volunteer and participant observer for her dissertation research. At the orphanage, Klepikova witnessed a conflict developing between the NGO volunteers and the nurses: a clash between two models of care on the practical level, and two versions of understanding disability on the ideological level. This disconnect resembled the conflict between Western humanistic pedagogics and a patriarchal discriminating approach to disability and difference. After a year, Klepikova transferred to volunteer at a similar institution for adults. There, she found a different conflict between the volunteers and medical staff due to the latter being responsible for various psychiatric restrictions, forced administration of sedative drugs, and involuntary hospitalizations. In this case, the conflict was between the social-constructionist and medicalized approaches to mental illness. In this presentation, Klepikova discusses the differences and intersections in these polar approaches to disability care. Introducing her ethnographic material, she reflects on the nature of anthropological understanding that might form various grounds for solidarity.
Topic:
Health Care Policy, Humanitarian Intervention, Mental Health, and NGOs
Political Geography:
Russia and Europe

7. Do Americans Face Greater Mental Health and Economic Consequences from COVID-19? Comparing the U.S. with Other High-Income Countries

Author:
Michelle M. Doty, Eric C. Schneider, Roosa Tikkanen, Arnav Shah, and Reginald D. Williams II
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
With more than 4 million confirmed cases and 150,000 deaths as of August, the United States is failing to control the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when many nations are reopening their economies and societies, the U.S. is struggling in its attempts to do the same. To examine the early impact of the pandemic on the well-being of adults in the U.S. and abroad, the Commonwealth Fund joined the survey research firm SSRS to interview 8,259 adults age 18 and older between March and May 2020. It is the latest in the Commonwealth Fund’s series of cross-national comparisons featuring the United States and nine other high-income countries that participate in the Fund’s annual International Health Policy Survey. The following exhibits illustrate COVID-19’s effects on people’s mental health and economic security and compare levels of public trust in national leaders in responding to the pandemic.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Mental Health, and Public Health
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Global Focus

8. Global Health Security and Pandemics: The Politics of Loneliness in Pandemic Britain

Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
In this episode, Professor Barbara Taylor, Professor of Humanities in the Schools of History and English & Drama discusses the loneliness crisis that has engulfed Britain during the pandemic and highlights how individuals have turned to each other in acts of kindness to fulfil social obligations that are not necessarily being met by Government.
Topic:
Security, Mental Health, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe

9. The Effect of Stressors and Resilience Factors on Mental Health of Recent Refugees in Austria

Author:
Isabella Buber-Ennser, Judith Kohlenberger, Michael Landesmann, Sebastian Leitner, and Bernhard Rengs
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
Given the exposure to stressors in their home countries, during their migration and in the phase after arrival, refugees are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems. At the same time, their access to adequate healthcare and other social infrastructure might be hampered by factors such as lack of knowledge as well as cultural and language barriers. In addition to other factors, this reduces their ability to take part in social activities as well as their integration into the labour market of the host societies. We examine the prevalence of mental disorders in the refugee population from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria who arrived in Austria recently, drawing on data from a refugee survey conducted between December 2017 and April 2018 in Austria with a specific focus on Vienna, Salzburg, Graz, Linz and Innsbruck (FIMAS+INTEGRATION). We found a high share of refugees (32%) to have moderate or severe mental health problems. In particular, young refugees (15-34 years) show higher risk levels. When investigating the effects of stressors on the mental health situation, we found a positive association with e.g. experienced discrimination in Austria and the fear for partners and children left behind. In contrast, the results show a negative correlation for a couple of mitigating factors that foster resilience, i.e. proficiency in the German language, being employed (including volunteer work), having more supportive relationships and satisfaction with the housing situation.
Topic:
Migration, Refugees, Mental Health, Resilience, Labor Market, and Social Integration
Political Geography:
Europe and Austria

10. Depressive mood and children: Europe and South Korea

Author:
Antonio Rodríguez Andrés, Rosemary L. Hopcroft, and Yong-Hwan Noh
Publication Date:
04-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
Abstract:
Using data for the third wave from the European Social Survey (ESS) and the Fourth Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES), this research examines the relationship between having children at home and depression among men and women aged 18-75 years. Multilevel and probit regression models are applied. Our results show that there is a gender differential in depression. Having children at home improves psychological well-being for men only in 23 European countries and South Korea. In Europe we also find that depression tends to be lower in countries in which per capita income is higher. The results also show that household income is negatively associated with levels of depression in South Korea.
Topic:
Children, Mental Health, Depression, and Income
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, and South Korea