https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 20 Apr 2020 14:38:21 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/cognitive-social-capital-and-mental-illness-during-economic-crisis-a-nationwide-population-based-study-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:25 +0000 http://arc.local/items/cognitive-social-capital-and-mental-illness-during-economic-crisis-a-nationwide-population-based-study-in-greece/ Continued]]> The ongoing financial crisis in Greece has yielded adverse effects on the mental health of the population. In this context, the particular study investigates the link between two indices of cognitive social capital; namely interpersonal and institutional trust, and the presence of major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. A random and representative sample of 2256 respondents took part in a cross-sectional nationwide telephone survey the time period February-April 2011 (Response Rate = 80.5%), after being recruited from the national phone number databank. Major depression and generalized anxiety disorder were assessed with the Structured Clinical Interview, while for interpersonal and institutional trust the pertinent questions of the European Social Survey were utilized. Socio-demographic variables were also encompassed in the research instrument, while participants’ degree of financial strain was assessed through the Index of Personal Economic Distress. Both interpersonal and institutional trust were found to constitute protective factors against the presence of major depression, but not against generalized anxiety disorder for people experiencing low economic hardship. Nonetheless, in people experiencing high financial strain, interpersonal and institutional trust were not found to bear any association with the presence of the two disorders. Consistent with these, the present study shows that the effect of social capital on mental health is not uniform, as evident by the different pattern of results for the two disorders. Furthermore, cognitive social capital no longer exerts its protective influence on mental health if individuals experience high economic distress. As a corollary of this, interventions aiming at mitigating the mental health effects of economic downturns cannot rely solely on the enhancement of social capital, but also on alleviating economic burden.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-impact-of-fiscal-austerity-on-suicide-on-the-empirics-of-a-modern-greek-tragedy/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:23 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-impact-of-fiscal-austerity-on-suicide-on-the-empirics-of-a-modern-greek-tragedy/ Continued]]> Suicide rates in Greece (and other European countries) have been on a remarkable upward trend following the global recession of 2008 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2009. However, recent investigations of the impact on Greek suicide rates from the 2008 financial crisis have restricted themselves to simple descriptive or correlation analyses. Controlling for various socio–economic effects, this study presents a statistically robust model to explain the influence on realised suicidality of the application of fiscal austerity measures and variations in macroeconomic performance over the period 1968–2011. The responsiveness of suicide to levels of fiscal austerity is established as a means of providing policy guidance on the extent of suicide behaviour associated with different fiscal austerity measures. The results suggest (i) significant age and gender specificity in these effects on suicide rates and that (ii) remittances have suicide-reducing effects on the youth and female population. These empirical regularities potentially offer some guidance on the demographic targeting of suicide prevention measures and the case for ‘economic’ migration.

]]>