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Mental health in context: work and welfare transitions over time

This event is part of the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health Seminar Series. This seminar invites reflection on the role of mental health in shaping work transitions, when viewed in broader biographical and temporal context. Annie Irvine will share findings from a recent UK-based qualitative longitudinal study which explored the factors that influenced movement between work and welfare benefits, for a diverse group of 23 individuals with experience of mental health problems. This rich qualitative data showed that numerous factors beyond mental health influenced participants’ employment trajectories over time, including adverse childhood and educational experiences, caring roles, partnership formation and dissolution, domestic abuse, and precarity vs security of labour market status at times when mental health affected work capacity. Without ever undermining the veracity of people’s distress, the study demonstrates that employment outcomes cannot be understood through the lens of mental health alone. At a time when the relationship between mental health and economic (in)activity is rising ever higher on policy and political agendas, this research suggests a need for a more critical and holistic approach to understanding the range of social, economic and relational influences that bring about employment continuity and change for people with experience of mental health problems.