Locked down in Distress: a Causal Estimation of the Mental-Health Fallout from the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK

An already extensive literature documents the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. A nascent literature is also beginning to detail the mental health impact. A limitation with existing work is that reported findings generally cannot be taken as causal estimates. In this study, we use a large-scale longitudinal survey coupled with a differences-in-differences research design to estimate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for mental health. We find substantive estimated increases in psychological distress for the population overall during the first wave. These impacts were, however, not uniformly distributed with the costs in terms of mental health being much more pronounced for females, younger cohorts, those with children, members of the BAME community and migrants. We also document significant heterogeneity according to personality traits. Finally, we identify subjective perceptions relating to financial health as an important predictor of the degree to which the mental health of people are impacted.