Expanding welfare benefits improves mental health

Austerity-style reductions to welfare benefits have detrimental effects on mental health, particularly for more vulnerable groups in society who are also most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study, co-authored by Fuse researchers Prof Clare Bambra and Dr Heather Brown, also found that policies that expand social security benefits are associated with positive mental health outcomes – particularly in more vulnerable groups, reducing inequalities in mental health.

The research, published in the Social Science and Medicine journal, combined the results of thirty-eight studies into major reforms of social security in eight high-income countries (including UK, USA, Canada) over the past three decades. It assessed whether changes to the welfare system affected the mental health of adults and children. 

Prof Bambra, Fuse Senior Investigator and Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University said: "Our results show the importance to protecting people's mental health of adequate social safety nets.

"This is particularly relevant now as the lock down and the Covid-19 pandemic is already leading to deteriorations in people's mental health.

"Our research suggests that the current increase to Universal Credit of £20 per week should be maintained in order to protect the mental health of the most vulnerable in our society."  

"The current increase to Universal Credit of £20 per week should be maintained in order to protect the mental health of the most vulnerable in our society" 

Professor Clare Bambra

Julija Simpson PhD student in the Newcastle University Public Health Sciences Institute and co-author said: "We found that policies that expand social security benefits are associated with positive mental health outcomes and lower mental health inequalities, whereas policies that reduce or limit benefits tend to have negative effects.

"The evidence showed that austerity-style reductions to social security policies can have detrimental effects on population mental health, particularly for more vulnerable groups in society – groups who are also disproportionately being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“When countries are developing evidence-based policy social security policies they need to ensure that the mental health impacts of such policies are fully considered, and so that future policies promote, or at least do not harm, the mental health of the most vulnerable groups in our society."

Media: Guardian newspaper article based on this research.

Paper: Effects of social security policy reforms on mental health and inequalities: A systematic review of observational studies in high-income countries. Julija Simpson, Viviana Albani, Zoe Bell. Clare Bambra, HeatherBrown. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113717 

Adapted with thanks to Newcastle University

Last modified: Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:58:23 GMT