National Stress Awareness Day

You may have been too busy to notice but today has been National Stress Awareness Day. This comes just a few days after Ed Milliband's speech about the taboo of Mental Health and how it impacts upon people's lives. If you haven't done so recently, do check out the World Health Organisation 's website which has lots of data on the prevalence of mental health issues around the world with the most startling facts being that 1 in 4 people around the world suffer from mental health issues at some point in their lifetime affecting as many as 450 million people.And yet, when was the last time you used this as an example of labour market failure or poor economic performance?

Of course, the reason you might not have mentioned mental health issues in your class is because you might not be aware of the size of the issue. Also, you may have concerns about discussing the topic in class - you might not wish to cause any of your students distress or embarrassment or you might feel it just doesn't have any currency with young people. Perhaps Milliband is right - are we all too embarrassed to talk about it? And yet, one of the key proposals by the WHO is that countries should educate younger people about the causes and possible preventions of mental health disorders.

How do we build this into our economics classes?

Should stress-relieving goods and services now be seen as merit goods with a wider social benefit? Should employers be building in methods of relieving stress as a means of improving efficiency (could this be as important as improved training?)? Should government economic and social policy reflect the fact that stress is is caused by different factors for men and women which has an impact upon the career paths for both genders and our economic well-being?