ArticleHealth economics2017
Introduction of a National Minimum Wage Reduced Depressive Symptoms in Low-Wage Workers: A Quasi-Natural Experiment in the UK.
Article in Health economics, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 53 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
53 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 166 citations in OpenAlex.
- Healthcare services for low-wage migrant workers: A systematic review.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Pooled it
- Preventing depression in high-income countries-A systematic review of studies evaluating change in social determinants.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Do cash transfers alleviate common mental disorders in low- and middle-income countries? A systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- How do income changes impact on mental health and wellbeing for working-age adults? A systematic review and meta-analysis.The Lancet. Public health · 2022Pooled it
- State Labor Market Policies and Health.The Milbank quarterly · 2026Article
- Denial of Earned Wages and Psychological Distress among Latino Day Laborers: The Impact of Work-Related Mistreatment and Powerlessness on Mental Health.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2026Article
- Minimum Wages, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Mental Health Around Pregnancy.Health economics · 2026Article
- Impact of minimum wage increases on smoking before, during and after pregnancy in the USA: a difference-in-differences analysis of cross-sectional surveillance data.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Counting pennies, carrying stress: The mental health impact of low wages on tea garden workers in Sylhet and Moulvibazar.Global mental health (Cambridge, England) · 2026Article
- Health effects of an increased federal minimum wage among US low-wage-earning adults: a difference-in-differences analysis in a population-based cohort.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Welfare policies, joint pain prevalence and educational gaps in 50 U.S. states from 2011 to 2021: A fixed effects analysis.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- Investigating causal effects of income on health using two-sample Mendelian randomisation.BMC global and public health · 2025Article
- How is health equity considered in policy evaluations employing quasi-experimental methods? A scoping review and content analysis.European journal of public health · 2025Article
- The unintended effects of a large minimum wage increase on health: Evidence from South Korea.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2025Article
- State Minimum Wage and Mental Health Among Children and Adolescents.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- The introduction of a minimum wage in Germany and the effects on physical activity participation.International journal of health economics and management · 2024Article
- Comparing the World Psychiatric Association and European Psychiatric Association Codes of Ethics: Discrepancies and shared grounds.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2024Article
- The Price of Growing Up in a Low-Income Neighborhood: A Scoping Review of Associated Depressive Symptoms and Other Mood Disorders among Children and Adolescents.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in the association between higher state minimum wages and health and mental well-being in US adults with low educational attainment.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Does increasing incomes improve health? In 1999, the UK government implemented minimum wage legislation, increasing hourly wages to at least £3.60. This policy experiment created intervention and control groups that can be used to assess the effects of increasing wages on health. Longitudinal data were taken from the British Household Panel Survey. We compared the health effects of higher wages on recipients of the minimum wage with otherwise similar persons who were likely unaffected because (1) their wages were between 100 and 110% of the eligibility threshold or (2) their firms did not increase wages to meet the threshold. We assessed the probability of mental ill health using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. We also assessed changes in smoking, blood pressure, as well as hearing ability (control condition). The intervention group, whose wages rose above the minimum wage, experienced lower probability of mental ill health compared with both control group 1 and control group 2. This improvement represents 0.37 of a standard deviation, comparable with the effect of antidepressants (0.39 of a standard deviation) on depressive symptoms. The intervention group experienced no change in blood pressure, hearing ability, or smoking. Increasing wages significantly improves mental health by reducing financial strain in low-wage workers. © 2016 The Authors. Health Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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