How Important is Optimism for Mental Health? A Spatial Temporal Life Course Analysis on Indonesia

Unlike developed countries, we find a bell-shaped curve for the average frequency of depressive symptoms from the Indonesian Family Life Survey where the same people are followed over 14 years (2000-2014). This incidence is at a high level around the age of 60 and lower for younger and older people. If we may assume that a high incidence of depressive symptoms goes together with a low average of mental health then we may conclude that the average mental health is at at a low level around 60 and higher for younger and older people (U-shape). In addition, we provide evidence for the first time that positive future expectations of one's physical health significantly reduces incidence of depressive symptoms after accounting for reverse causality. This is however contingent on gender as optimistic health expectation is effective for male but not for female. This effect is also more pronounced for those 60 years and below as well as urban residents. However, the association of health optimism with incidence of depressive symptoms weakens with age. Results from this paper show that a focus on rural/urban residency, younger and older age cohorts and gender can provide targeted social policies to effectively promote better mental health.