The Connection Between Unemployment and Unmarried Parents

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

May 2003

By Rachel Henneck, Council on Contemporary Families Intern

In the space of about 30 years, the institution of marriage lost its dominance as the main mechanism by which income is distributed to women and children, while the workplace lost its status as a place where employees' family responsibilities could be ignored. The private, unpaid, 24-hour caregiving work of women can no longer be taken for granted by employers or society as a whole, nor can it be taken for granted that most women and children have access to a full-time male worker's income and benefits. How have industrial nations changed, or failed to change, their social policies in response?

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.

February 1, 2007

By Jody Heymann, Professor in the Faculties of Medicine and Arts, McGill University, Founder and Director of the Project on Global Working Families; jody.heymann@mcgill.edu; 514.398.2027 or 514.398.2436; and Alison Earle, Project Manager for the Work, Family and Democracy Initiative, Harvard University; and Jeffrey Hayes, Institute for Health & Social Policy, McGill University

When it comes to protecting the family lives of workers, U.S. public policies lag dramatically behind other high-income countries, and even behind many middle- and low-income countries.

May 11, 2008

By Valerie Adrian, Research Intern, Council on Contemporary Families; valadrian@gmail.com; and Stephanie Coontz, Professor of History and Family Studies, The Evergreen State College; coontzs@msn.com; 360.556.9223

Here's a thought for a Mother's Day gift that would go beyond the complimentary flowers passed out by restaurants and the complementary speeches churned out by politicians every May: Affordable child care that is operated in accord with high-quality national standards.

May 13, 2008

By Shelley MacDermid, Director, Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University; shelley@purdue.edu; 765.496.3402

When politicians make speeches celebrating Armed Forces Day, they seldom discuss the military child care system. But this is an area in which the military has a lot to teach the civilian world. Indeed, the transformation of child care in the military is one of the government success stories of the past 20 years.