Factors of Depression: Education, Low Income, and Gender Inequality

This article discusses the factors of depression, including education, low income, and gender inequality, and their impact on individuals' mental health and quality of life. It also highlights the initiatives taken by WHO and other organizations to address this issue.

Running head: FACTORS OF DEPRESSION
FACTORS OF DEPRESSION
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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FACTORS OF DEPRESSION
Depression is a common but a serious mental disorder that is negatively affecting the
ways individuals feel about themselves, the ways they think and the ways they react. This
disorder is mainly seen to cause a feeling of sadness as well as loss of interest in activities that
the individuals used to enjoy once in their lives. This can lead to various types of emotional as
well as physical problems that in turn affect and decrease the ability of the individuals to
function at work as well as at homes (1). A number of symptoms remain intricately associated
with the occurrence of depression. Individuals are seen to feel sad and have depressed mood
along with partial or complete loss of interest in tasks that are once enjoyed. Moreover, changes
in appetite are also noticed along with loss or gain of weight that are unrelated to any dieting
issues. Individuals are also seen to suffer from troubled sleeping or they can be seen to sleep too
much (2). Loss of energy as well as increased fatigue, increase in the purposeless physical
activities as well as feeling of worthlessness or guilt is also observed. Besides, difficulty in
thinking, concentrating as well as making of decisions is also affected when individuals support
from depression. Many individuals are also seen to suffer from thoughts of death and even
conduct suicides. Therefore, it can be easily seen that people who are affected by depression lead
very poor quality lives (3). Therefore, it is extremely important for the healthcare professionals
to understand the factors that contribute to depression in details so that effective interventions
can be applied and patients can be ensured high quality lives (4). In this assignment, the three
important factors like education, low income and gender inequality would be discussed along
with the ways about how it affects people making them suffer from depression.
Depression tends to first appear in the adolescents as well as in the early adulthood
period. Researchers are of the opinion that about 25% of the people who develop a depressive
disorder mainly do so before the age of 20 years and about 50% of the depression cases are seen

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to occur before the age of 30 years. Depression is mainly seen to be the frequently managed
mental health programs for young people aged between 12 to 24 years. Moreover, about 13.5%
of the cases of mental health disorders that are handled by the general practitioners are found to
be related to disorder of depression (5). Lifetime prevalence of depression is 16.6% and the rates
are found to be higher among the young females as compared to young males. Other researchers
have found out that every year, about 3 in 100 Australian males between the age 12 to 24 years
and 1 in 10 females of the same age will have a depressive disorder.
Education is one of the most important factors that lead to depression. In the present
generation, the students mainly due to academic pressure experience huge amount of pressure.
The academics in the present generation have been quite challenging and are therefore overriding
the joys of education. Students are seen to become more anxious as well as depressed when they
are not able to perform well as per expected by themselves. The failure to achieve good marks in
the examination even after trying their best makes them sad. Repeated issues faced by the
students failing to get marks as expected make them undergo in the phase of depression that
makes it difficult for them to come out (6). This results them to suffer from poor quality lives
where they socially exclude themselves from the rest of the friends, families and society.
Moreover, some parents are highly ambitious and provide excessive pressure on their wards.
Often it is seen that the parents pressurizes their wards to achieve high marks in their academics
even when their wards might not want to pursue such subjects in their future life or may not find
them interesting. Such pressure over a constant period creates anxiety in the children and they
tend to lose love and liking on the subjects (7). When such subjects are taught to them in a
forceful manner, it becomes stressful for them that make them go into phases of depression.
Repeated comparisons done by parents of their own wards along with other meritorious children

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also make the, depressed and in course of time they lose their confidence, enthusiasm and hope
to overcome barriers and become successful. These engulf them in the darkness of hopelessness
and they tend to lose the will to live life. They tend to become more suicidal and prone to self-
harm. Often such depression results them to take up the use of different types of substance like
smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol and other drugs that exposes the children to a poor quality life
(8). Such children tend to develop into adults who are not only affected by substance abuse
disorders but are also poor in education and thereby suffer from financial problems. Moreover, as
students tend to get promoted through different standards in their schools, colleges and
universities, it is seen that the depth and hardness level of education also increases. In the present
day of competitive worlds, every organization only tends to appoint individuals who have the
brightest educational career and have the best-developed skills. Therefore, the scope narrows and
number of aspirants increases (9). Such competitions may affect individuals negatively when
they fail repeatedly. Such issues also result in development of depression among the aspirants
that affect them not only mentally but also physically.
The unequal distribution of income as well as wealth has been growing steadily over the
past three decades in astonishing levels. This is in turn fuelled by the wide adoption of the neo-
liberal policies as well as the globalization. In the year 2016, it was seen that the top ten persons
of the world owned 89% of the global assets whereas the bottom half of the global population
was seen to collectively own less than one percent of the total wealth. Such income variances
make scenarios quite clear (10). Comparative studies have shown that people of high socio-
economic classes are seen to be happier in comparison to people living in the low socio-
economic classes. Low-income people are seen to be highly depressed as they have a constant
fear about how to meet up the financial requirements needed to maintain an average equality life.

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People with low income are seen to remain stressed for paying rents or mortgage , the
requirements to pay for the electricity bills and even to smaller requirements like repairing of
cars. Often tensions are also found among individuals regarding how to meet the basic
requirements in life when they would retire and many others. Such important activities require
economic strengths and when people fail to meet such requirements, it results in affecting not
only mental stability but also result in depression and several other physical issues. The
individuals are also seen to suffer from shamelessness and this makes them withdrawn from the
society resulting them in suffering from depression (11). Low income also affects the ability of
family members to fetch food items and necessities of daily lives to the other members of the
family which in turn exposes the main head to suffer from hopelessness, feeling of loss and
inability to stand up to the expectations of the family members. Such a feeling is often described
to be humiliating as well as painful for the concerned individual and in such a situation; it
becomes very difficult for the person to maintain the mental stability. Therefore, the persons
become vulnerable to development of depression that in turn affects the quality of life of not only
the person but also the family members. Struggling to get by with a low income often is seen to
lead stress. Worrying about the finances can affect moods of the individuals as well as affecting
sleep, eating habits as well as quality of relationships. Low income may lead to poor diet too that
also have impacts on mental as well as emotional well being. All these result in depression of
individuals making them suffer from poor quality lives (12).
In most of the traditional as well as in-transitions societies, the superiority of men to that
of the women is considered to be one of the great barriers for the progress of women in the social
life. Researchers have found out that women have limited job opportunities in the societies,
which make them, always suffer from stress and anxiety to prove her to be independent or to

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keep it in a tight competition with men. Often-such pressures in the workplace results the women
to pass on their problems to their houses where they express anger from inequality to their other
members. Realization of such behaviors as well as inability to balance both the pressures and
failing to tackle both the sides effectively results in creation of depression among the women.
Many researchers opine that gender inequalities faced by the women are often seen to percolate
through the system (13). The experienced women who have already faced such inequalities but
are now on higher positions tend to behave similarly with the novice women who are new to the
firms. These affect the novice employees largely making them suffer from anxiety and
depression. However, this fact is not backed up by many evidence-based articles and therefore
cannot be supported entirely. Different types of social processes are there that are seen to sort
and typecast women into certain jobs. Moreover, many situations compensate women less than
their equivalent male counterparts that thereby create gender disparities even when both the
genders are possessing equal qualifications as well as experiences (14). Therefore, these sorts of
gender inequalities make the women feel helpless where they feel anxious about their career as
well as about their present condition in the organizations. These have psychosocial
consequences. Data had been gathered from about 22000 workers from the age of 30 to that of
65 where it was seen that women were twice likely to suffer from depression in the past year.
Therefore, such inequalities make them vulnerable to development of depression, anxiety,
hopelessness, social exclusion, loneliness and others and hence affect quality life (15).
WHO is now considering depression as one of the priority conditions which are covered
by WHO’s mental health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP). This program is mainly aimed to
help different nations to develop and increase services for people with mental as well as
neurological and substance abuse disorders mainly through the care provided by healthcare

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professionals who are not specialized in mental health management. Like many other agencies,
WHO has developed brief psychosocial intervention manuals for depression that may be
delivered by lay workers (16). One of the examples can be provided here. One of them is the
Problem Management Plus that are mainly seen to describe the utilization of the behavioral
actions, relaxation training, strengthening social support as well as problem solving treatment.
The manual Group Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) for Depression is also helpful in describing
group treatment of depression. Moreover, another attempt called the Thinking Healthy is useful
in covering the utilization of cognitive-behavioral therapy for perinatal depression (17). On the
national level, beyond blue is one of the Australian independent nonprofit organizations that are
working to address various issues faced by the national citizens mainly in cases of depression,
suicide, anxiety disorders as well as other mental disorders. The organization working on the
national level has found out that about 3 million people are living with anxiety or depression.
One very interesting thing about their approach is that they have handled every cohort separately
starting with young people, women, men, older people, multicultural people, indigenous people,
homosexual people as well as pregnancy and early parenthood. Different causes are there in
different categories and therefore they are handled differently among different groups. Resources
for help are present in a distinctive manner like with categories as in schools and universities,
workplaces, aged care, health professionals and others and thereby help the individuals to get
access to not only services but also help them to gather information and knowledge about the
disorders (18). Besides, this several initiatives are also produced. One of them was the National
Perinatal Depression Initiative that mainly aims for the improvement of the prevention as well as
the early detection of the antenatal as well as the postnatal depression. These initiatives
developed the better screening, support as well as treatment of the expectant and new mothers

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who are experiencing depression (19). It was allocated for a period of 5 years with routine and
universal screening, follow up treatment, training and development of healthcare professionals as
well as researching and collection of data including prevention activities. Another initiative that
was also taken was the publication of policy called the “Prevention of depression and anxiety in
Australian schools” by the Black Dog Institute in the month of October 2016. This policy mainly
provided information about evidence based programs that will prevent the onset of mental ill
health like depression by providing a summary of the evidence-based school prevention
programs. This mainly aimed at developing help seeking attitude, reduction of stigma and
prevention of depression and anxiety in the youth.
From the entire discussion above, it becomes extremely important for the healthcare
professionals to understand how different factors are associated with the occurrence of
depression. Stress arising from education among the students and low incomes resulting in poor
financial stability are the factors that cause depression in women. Moreover, inequality in gender
pay gap and opportunity also result in development of depression among women. WHO has
identified it as one of the most important disorder that is affecting every nations and its people
largely. Therefore, it has helped the entire world by the introduction of a huge number of
initiatives in the nation. Such initiatives are evidence based and are expected to help every
people of every nation to get access to services for proper screening and proper treatment. This
would ensure effective development of the patients helping them to lead better quality lives.

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