Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0692-y BRIEF COMMUNICATION Brief Report: Subjective Social Mobility and Depressive Symptoms in Syrian Refugees to Germany Frank Euteneuer 1  · Sarina J. Schäfer 2 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract Previous fndings indicate that refugees are at increased risk for mental health problems. In addition to stressful pre-migration experiences, post-migration factors may contribute to poor mental health outcomes. Among immigrants to the United States, downward mobility in subjective social status (SSS) was associated with depression, corroborating the potentially detrimental mental health consequences of a decline in one’s perceived social position. The present study examined whether downward mobility in SSS among male refugees from Syria to Germany is associated with depression. We found that refugees who experience stronger downward mobility in SSS exhibit more severe depressive symptoms and were more likely to fulfll provisional DSM-IV criteria for a diagnosis of Major Depression. Our fndings highlight the importance to consider the ‘social pain’ of downward social mobility during the post-migration phase. Keywords Downward social mobility · Subjective social status · Depression · Depressive symptoms · Refugees Background Previous fndings indicate that refugees are at increased risk for mental health problems, in particular post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety [1]. Among refugees from war and confict areas, pre-migration traumatic experiences and post-migration stressors have been associated with all of these psychopathological outcomes, whilst a poor post- migration social status was particularly associated with depression [2]. Accordingly, it has been suggested that ref- ugees, after arriving in a foreign country, realize that they “have lost everything” including their social standing and control over several aspects of their lives [1]. Thus, the sub- jective experience of downward social mobility might be an important psychosocial stressor, which facilitates depression [3]. While downward social mobility is understudied in refu- gees, two studies have examined subjective social mobility in immigrants by measuring their loss in subjective social status (SSS) [4, 5]. SSS refers to the “individual’s percep- tion of his place on the social ladder” and has frequently been found to predict health outcomes better than objective socioeconomic indicators [3]. Among immigrants to the United States, downward mobility in SSS was associated with elevated risk for developing depression, corroborating the potentially detrimental mental health consequences of a decline in one’s perceived social position [4, 5]. Although downward social mobility can be considered a common problem among refugees [1, 2], to our knowl- edge, no studies have explicitly examined whether down- ward mobility in SSS predicts depressive symptoms in refugees from conflict and war-areas. In this study, we examined whether downward mobility in SSS among male refugees from Syria to Germany is associated with depres- sive symptom severity and a provisional diagnosis of Major Depression. F. Euteneuer and S.J. Schäfer contributed equally as frst authors. * Frank Euteneuer frank.euteneuer@staf.uni-marburg.de Sarina J. Schäfer sarina.schaefer@fernuni-hagen.de 1 Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Philipps University of Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032 Marburg, Germany 2 Psychological Methods and Evaluation, University of Hagen, Universitätsstraße 33, 58084 Hagen, Germany