Year: 2022
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
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.
Language: English
Subfield: General Health Professions
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Awards: G115199707, G1205690636, G2162646731, G2452660645, Exploiting genomic approaches to identify the environmental basis of depression, G2940152675, G3227224082, G4038225287, Using multiple data sources to stratify depression and identify more targeted drug treatments, Informing educational interventions using genome-wide data: causal evidence from 573,586 participants of eight cohort studies, Stratifying Resilience and Depression Longitudinally (STRADL), G5470336846, G5577412723, Inequalities in health, G571894948, G5850737185, G5930719145, Leveraging routinely collected and linked research data to study the causes and consequences of common mental disorders, G7746778768, G7823463599, G8225047109, G8277915172, G9000080675, G9000348520
OpenAlex ID: W4220755326