In the current study, we examined the determinants of mental health among middle-aged and older adults, using micro data from a nationwide six-year panel survey in Japan. It is widely known that mental health in adulthood is associated with various socio-economic and demographic factors as well as family care provision. However, most previous studies have failed to control for time-invariant factors, probably leading to biased estimators. We employed fixed-effects regressions to tackle this issue and compared the associations of Kessler 6 (K6) scores with potential risk factors. We found that family caregiving had a closer association with psychological distress than any other factor did.
