It is curious that this research, linked to happiness, poverty, depression and anxiety, has not been carried out by psychologists, a group of economists has studied how these variables affect the quality of life, in addition they have detected the link between different mental conditions and poverty.
The survey was conducted by the London School of Economics (LSE) in England, based on a group of 200,000 people worldwide, the work was led by Richard Layard, an authority on quality of life and happiness, one of his assumptions was that happiness is more related to psychosocial factors than to economic gains. Research has shown that this is true.
“Poverty comes not from the reduction of wealth, but from the multiplication of desires. -Plato-
But, moreover, research as a whole demonstrated something Layard summed up in a single sentence: “Taking care of depression and anxiety is four times more effective than fighting poverty. “This statement has earned him a lot of criticism. One sector thought it was simply advocating to reduce the fight against poverty, but poverty can also be interpreted as the result of certain mental conditions such as depression.
Depression figures in the world are alarming. The World Health Organization has said that one in ten people in the world suffers from major depression and one in five have suffered at some point in their lives. But how do you link depression to poverty?
Traditionally we see the system in this way: poverty leads to a tendency to depression, it is assumed that not having enough money to survive without need is, in itself, a circumstance that leads to depression, that makes a lot of sense at first.
However, research like Layard’s shows that some people have doubled their income and still haven’t increased their happiness; It is also easy to see that countries with high consumption capacity, such as Japan, for example, also have high rates of depression. On the contrary, Latin American countries with significant poverty rates appear in the best positions in the lists organized by countries according to the degree of happiness perceived by the population.
What is known is that the onset of depression entails significant costs for the individual, families and countries; a depressed person is less productive and has a higher rate of absenteeism; In addition, in the long run, you have to rely on social assistance to support your condition or solve the impossibility of working. The Inter-American Development Bank noted that up to 4% of countries’ GDP is spent on mental and emotional problems.
It is understandable that the precariousness in which some people live has a profound emotional impact on them, in these conditions it is easy to sink into depression, however, according to the IDB survey, it is not poverty itself that causes depression. sadness is inequality. It is sad to live in a reality in which others have many, while some live in absolute need.
It also influences, of course, the fact that we live in consumer societies, the ability to buy is in many cases considered a source of happiness, generally we believe that being able to buy without fear of overspending brings inner peace and well-being. there are thousands of people who have big fortunes, buy when they want and yet they are depressed.
The path of depression to poverty seems far more obvious than the other way around. A mentally healthy and motivated person can cope with deficiencies assertively and vigorously. Find and find work more easily and don’t make decisions that are the seeds of long-term poverty.
For this reason, economists themselves stress the importance of investing in mental health along with investments to combat poverty.
Neither mental health is obtained with money, nor is it lost to lack of money. The subject goes further. These are the impositions of a consumer-hungry society, where being has to be, investing in mental health is not about training more psychologists or opening up more hospitals, it refers much more to the promotion of moments and places for human beings to choose and acquire knowledge of the reality of reality, not that which screens infiltrate and distress. And, of course, build your own life project in a healthier way for us.