WORKING MOTHERS, STAY-AT-HOME MOTHERS, AND DEPRESSION RISK

A Briefing Paper Prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families

By Margaret L. Usdansky (Syracuse University), Rachel A. Gordon (University of Illinois at Chicago), Xue Wang and Anna Gluzman

May 6, 2011

Mothers of young children face difficult decisions when it comes to employment. Some feminists warn that staying home leads to social isolation, increasing the risk of maternal depression. But many neo-traditionalists counter that employment increases women's stress levels, leading to depression because of lost time with children or worries about child care. The question of whether working or staying home causes depression matters not just for the sake of mothers' happiness, but for the well-being of children, since maternal depression is a risk factor for children. So it is important to know the findings of a new study: When it comes to mothers' risk of depression, both these one-size-fits-all arguments miss the mark.

The impact of working for pay or staying home on women's risk of depression depends on mothers' preferences and on their job quality, our study finds. Mothers who stay home because they prefer not to work outside the home have a relatively low risk of depression. But stay-at-home mothers who would rather be working for pay do face higher risks of depression. In fact, these women had the same risk of depression as mothers in our sample who wanted to stay home but had to go work in low-quality jobs.

Employment isn't always "good" or "bad" for women's morale. Much depends on the quality of the job, and this can even trump women's preference. Mothers employed in low-quality jobs face a heightened risk of depression even when they do want to work for pay. But interestingly, mothers employed in high-quality jobs face a low risk of depression even if they do NOT want to work for pay.

May 10, 2007

By David Cotter, Department of Sociology, Union College; cotterd@union.edu; and Paula England, Department of Sociology, Stanford University; pengland@stanford.edu; 650.723.4912 or 650.815.9308; and Joan Hermsen, Department of Sociology, University of Missouri; HermsenJ@missouri.edu

March 28, 2006

By Heather Boushey, Senior Economist, Center for American Progress; hboushey@cepr.net; 202.293.5380 x116

Contrary to conventional wisdom, highly educated mothers are MORE likely to be in the labor force than women with less education or less demanding careers.

April 25-26, 2008
Prepared for the 11th Annual Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families

By Oriel Sullivan, Professor of Sociology, Ben Gurion University; sullivan@bgu.ac.il; 972.8647.2056; and Scott Coltrane, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Riverside; scott.coltrane@ucr.edu; 951.827.2443

For thirty years, researchers studying the changes in family dynamics since the rise of the  women's movement have concluded that, despite gains in the world of education, work, and politics, women face a "stalled revolution" at home. According to many studies, men's family work has barely budged in response to women's increased employment. The typical punch line of many news stories has been that even though women are working longer hours on the job and cutting back their own housework, men are not picking up the slack.

Our research suggests that these studies were based on unrealistic hopes for instant transformation. They underestimated the amount of change going on behind the scenes and the growing willingness of men to adapt to their wives' new behaviors and values. In fact, more couples are sharing family tasks than ever before, and the movement toward sharing has been especially significant full-time dual-earner couples.

September 4, 2007

By Sanjiv Gupta, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; sanjivgupta1@gmail.com; 413.577.1773

What reduces women's housework burden? A new study shows that on average it doesn't have much to do with her husband's help or his earnings, but how much money SHE earns. The more she earns, the less housework she does.

May 4-5, 2007

By Molly Monahan Lang, Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice, Bloomsburg University; mlang@bloomu.edu; 216.577.7527; and Barbara J. Risman, Professor and Head of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago; brisman@uic.edu; 312.996.3005

After over 35 years of continuous change toward more egalitarian gender attitudes and behaviors, recent signs of a slowdown have led some observers to suggest that the gender revolution is coming to an end.  Evidence for this claim includes a slight dip in women's labor force participation, a rise in support for traditional gender attitudes among adults, and an increase in the age of sexual initiation among the young.  In the past year, the Council on Contemporary Families has received many enquiries from the press and general public about whether the transformation of men's and women's roles has now run its course.

In a review of this question prepared for the Tenth Anniversary Conference of CCF, we conclude that these short-term countertrends do not amount to a revival of traditional family roles and beliefs.  Instead, we show that the evidence overwhelmingly shows an ongoing shift toward what we call "gender convergence," an ever-increasing similarity in how men and women live and what they want from their lives.

May 8, 2006

The new HBO television show, "Big Love," has led many people to contact the Council on Contemporary Families for background on polygamy. Historian Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education at the Council, has put together the following background information.

January 17, 2006

By AnneMarie Murdock, Research Intern, Council on Contemporary Families; annemariemurdock@comcast.net

Recent trends in U.S. sexual education and reproductive health policies threaten to jeopardize the significant progress made during the 1980s and 1990s in improving teen sexual health domestically and HIV/STD infection rates, unwanted pregnancies, and reproductive health care worldwide.

May 1, 2004

By M.V. Lee Badgett, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; lbadgett@econs.umass.edu

Since the November 2003 court ruling allowing same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts, a new debate on the consequences of expanding the right to marry has exploded across the United States. While the debate involves many issues, one particularly controversial question is whether heterosexual people would change their marriage behavior if same-sex couples were given the same marital rights and obligations.