Abstract
Background: Depression is associated with socioeconomic disadvantage. However, whether and how depression exerts a causal effect on employment remains unclear. We used Mendelian randomisation (MR) to investigate whether depression affects employment and related outcomes in the UK Biobank dataset.
Methods: We selected 227 242 working-age participants (40-64 in men, 40-59 years for women) of white British ethnicity/ancestry with suitable genetic data in the UK Biobank study. We used 30 independent genetic variants associated with depression as instruments. We conducted observational and two-sample MR analyses. Outcomes were employment status (employed vs not, and employed vs sickness/disability, unemployment, retirement or caring for home/family); weekly hours worked (among employed); Townsend Deprivation Index; highest educational attainment; and household income.
Results: People who had experienced depression had higher odds of non-employment, sickness/disability, unemployment, caring for home/family and early retirement. Depression was associated with reduced weekly hours worked, lower household income and lower educational attainment, and increased deprivation. MR analyses suggested depression liability caused increased non-employment (OR 1.16, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.26) and sickness/disability (OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.34 to 1.82), but was not causal for caring for home/family, early retirement or unemployment. There was little evidence from MR that depression affected weekly hours worked, educational attainment, household income or deprivation.
Conclusions: Depression liability appears to cause increased non-employment, particularly by increasing disability. There was little evidence of depression affecting early retirement, hours worked or household income, but power was low. Effective treatment of depression might have important economic benefits to individuals and society.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 563-571 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 22 Mar 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2022 |
Data Availability Statement
Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Access to the dataset upon which this study is based must be sought from UK Biobank. The code used in the study analyses is available upon request from the authors.Acknowledgements
We thank all participants, staff and funders of the UK Biobank study and the NHS staff who collected data provided by patients as part of their care and support.Funding
This study was conducted using data from the UK Biobank resource (application number 17333). This work is part of a project entitled ‘Social and Eonomic Consequences of Health: Causal Inference Methods and Longitudinal, Intergenerational Data’, which is part of the Health Foundation’s Social and Economic Value of Health Programme (grant ref. 807293). The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK. This work was further supported by the Medical Research Council (DC, MG, ED and SVK, grant ref. MC_UU_00022/2) and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (DC, MG, ED and SVK, grant ref. SPHSU17), an NHS Research Scotland (NRS) Senior Clinical Fellowship (SVK, grant ref. SCAF/15/02), an Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders grant (NMD, grant ref. ES/N000757/1), a Norwegian Research Council (NMD, grant ref. 295989), a Career Development Award from the UK Medical Research Council (LDH, grant ref. MR/M020894/1), a MRC Strategic Award (ED, grant ref. MRC_PC_13027), a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowship (DMH, grant ref. 213674/Z/18/Z), a Brain & Behavior Research Foundation 2018 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant (DMH, grant ref. 27404), the Medical Research Centre Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol (MM, grant ref. MC_UU_0011/1, MC_UU_0011/7), Medical Research Centre grant (AMM, grant ref. MC_PC_17209) and Wellcome Trust grants (AMM, grant ref.s 104036/Z/14/Z, 220857/Z/20/Z).
Keywords
- Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Epidemiology
- Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
