ORIGINAL PAPER Employment Status and Mental Health: Mediating Roles of Social Support and Coping Strategies Michel Perreault 1,2 • El Hadj Toure ´ 1 • Nicole Perreault 1,3 • Jean Caron 1,2 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Although it has been established that unemployment and underemployment increase distress and depression, the psychological mechanisms involved are not very clear. This study examines the roles of social support and coping strategies as mediators of the association between employment status and mental health, as well as gender and age differences as moderators. Residents from the epidemiological catchment area of south- west Montreal responded to a randomized household survey for adults in 2009. A follow- up was conducted based on participants’ employment status 2 and 4 years later. ANOVAs tests were computed with SPSS to evaluate group differences, and structural equation modeling was performed with AMOS to test mediation effects. At baseline, among par- ticipants between 18 and 64 years old (n = 2325), 14.3 % were unemployed/not studying, 14.4 % worked part-time, and 56.5 % worked full-time. Employment status was found to significantly affect depression among those under 45 years old (chi-square = 23.4, p \ 0.001). Results showed a negative association of full-time employment with depres- sion, which was fully mediated by social support, less coping with drugs/medication, and less distress. A negative association with full-time employment was also noted with dis- tress, which was partially mediated by increased social support, coping with alcohol, and less coping with drugs/medication. The total indirect effect suggests that full-time employees generally have more resources and do not tend to use avoidance strategies like coping with drugs/medication, resulting in less distress (b =-0.05; p \ 0.01) and depression (b =-0.028; p \ 0.01). Results suggest that optimal impact on mental health could be attained when increasing employment, namely full-time employment, in communities. & Michel Perreault michel.perreault@douglas.mcgill.ca 1 Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Research Centre, 6875 LaSalle Boulevard, Montreal, QC H4H 1R3, Canada 2 Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada 3 Direction de Sante ´ Publique de Montre ´al, 1301 rue Sherbrooke E., Montreal, QC H2L 1M3, Canada 123 Psychiatr Q DOI 10.1007/s11126-016-9460-0