Overview
The aim of this chapter is to assess the effects of women’s work and family roles (both the occupancy and quality of these roles) on their mental health.1 Although there is general concern about the impact of multiple roles on women’s mental health, most of the available research examines the impact of individual roles such as that of mother (by itself) or paid employee (by itself). For example, we know that mothers report more symptoms of distress than nonmothers (Barnett & Baruch, 1985; Veroff, Douvan, & Kulka, 1981). Similarly, findings suggest that occupancy of the paid-employee role is associated with high subjective well-being and low psychological distress (Baruch, Biener, & Barnett, 1987; Brown & Harris, 1978; Thoits, 1983).
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Barnett, R.C., Marshall, N.L. (1991). The Relationship between Women’s Work and Family Roles and Their Subjective Well-Being and Psychological Distress. In: Frankenhaeuser, M., Lundberg, U., Chesney, M. (eds) Women, Work, and Health. The Plenum Series on Stress and Coping. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3712-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3712-0_6
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