Who has an alternative hypothesis that explains this data? Anyone? Ooh ooh, pick me, pick me. Perhaps being depressed has something to do with your life being depressing, due to things like lack of human capital or job opportunities, life and career setbacks or alienation from one’s work. Income increases life satisfaction, as I assume does the prospect of future income.
It is amazing to see the ‘depression is purely a chemical imbalance unrelated to one’s physical circumstances’ attitude in this brazen a form. Mistaking correlation for causation here seems like a difficult mistake for a reasonable and reflecting person to make.
They measured depression at ages 27-35 in 1992 and outcomes at age 50. They control for “age, gender, race, for level of education by age 26, parental education, r marital status in 1992 survey, years of work experience accumulated by 1992 survey, the average percentage of weeks the person’s work history data is unaccounted for by 1992 survey, health status during childhood, a dummy for number of cigarettes consumed by 1992 survey, year indicators, local unemployment rate in 1992, 1998, 2004, and the year the person’s outcome variable is collected.”
So it’s not like they just correlated depression and wages from a cross-sectional survey and claimed causation. They did some work here.
They measured depression at ages 27-35 in 1992 and outcomes at age 50. They control for “age, gender, race, for level of education by age 26, parental education, r marital status in 1992 survey, years of work experience accumulated by 1992 survey, the average percentage of weeks the person’s work history data is unaccounted for by 1992 survey, health status during childhood, a dummy for number of cigarettes consumed by 1992 survey, year indicators, local unemployment rate in 1992, 1998, 2004, and the year the person’s outcome variable is collected.”
So it’s not like they just correlated depression and wages from a cross-sectional survey and claimed causation. They did some work here.