arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

Psychological barriers to participation in the labor market: Evidence from rural Ghana

Leandro Carvalho et al.

Journal of Development Economics2026https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103734article
AJG 3ABDC A*
Weight
0.50

What the paper says

Mental health conditions are strongly associated with reduced labor market participation, but the underlying channels through which such conditions impact labor supply remain unclear. We conduct a two-phase study decomposing this relationship by examining (i) job take-up decisions and (ii) labor supply, output, and earning conditional on job take-up, and (iii) quit rates. In Phase 1, women in rural Ghana are asked whether they would be willing to take-up a cash-for-work job during the lean season when alternative work is scarce. We find that individuals with depression and anxiety, which are common in this population, are much more likely to decline work offers outside the home but equally likely to accept work-from-home positions. In Phase 2, we randomly offer jobs at home to those who were willing to work from home, avoiding selection effects. Neither depression nor anxiety predict work completion, income, or quit rates when working from home. These findings suggest that poor mental health may harm labor market outcomes in traditional jobs outside of the home via reduced take-up, above and beyond the established negative impacts of mental health on productivity in work outside of the home. But, the results also suggest an alternative approach to improving labor market outcomes for those in poor mental health: work-from-home opportunities, which are not associated with lower take-up or lower productivity on the job for those in poor mental health. • Depression and anxiety reduce job take-up for outside-home work in rural Ghana. • No differences in take-up of home-based jobs by mental health status. • Mental health does not affect productivity, income, or quit rates in home-based work. • Work-from-home opportunities may mitigate labor market barriers from poor mental health.

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103734

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{leandro2026,
  title        = {{Psychological barriers to participation in the labor market: Evidence from rural Ghana}},
  author       = {Leandro Carvalho et al.},
  journal      = {Journal of Development Economics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103734},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Psychological barriers to participation in the labor market: Evidence from rural Ghana

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.