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Björk-Fant JM, Nordmyr J, Forsman AK. Work-life balance and the psychosocial work environment in Finnish working life: The case of gender and family life stages. Work 2024:WOR230166. [PMID: 38995745 DOI: 10.3233/wor-230166] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 07/14/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Work-life balance is associated with many positive effects at multiple levels and demands increased research attention. In the international literature on work-life balance, the term "gendered life-course" has been used to describe the differences between men and women in work biographies. However, whether this term applies to the Nordic work context remains underexplored. OBJECTIVE This study examined Finnish men's and women's subjective experience of the association between work-life balance and the psychosocial work environment (work demands and social support at work) across the life course, devoting special attention to family life stages encompassing the care of (young) children. METHODS Data from the Quality of Work Life Survey 2018 were utilized to conduct binary logistic regression analyses (N = 3790). Separate analyses were conducted for men and women. RESULTS A significant association between family life stage and high work-life balance was found for women but not for men in the Finnish working life. Women in family life stages involving the care of young, dependent children reported the lowest odds of high work-life balance. For both men and women, a positive association between social support at work and high work-life balance was found, while a negative association was found between work demands and high work-life balance. CONCLUSIONS These findings highlight the importance of psychosocial factors in both the work and family settings for work-life balance. Further, the findings call for an expanded focus on gender equality, also including issues in unpaid work in addition to issues in paid work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janina M Björk-Fant
- Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
| | - Johanna Nordmyr
- Health Sciences, Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
| | - Anna K Forsman
- Health Sciences, Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
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Nordsletten AE, Isomura K, Crowley JJ, Cervin M, Larsson H, Lichtenstein P, Mataix-Cols D, Sidorchuk A. Labour market marginalization in children of persons with major psychiatric disorders: a Swedish national cohort study. World Psychiatry 2023; 22:483-484. [PMID: 37713580 PMCID: PMC10503925 DOI: 10.1002/wps.21127] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/17/2023] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Ashley E Nordsletten
- Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
| | - Kayoko Isomura
- Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - James J Crowley
- Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Departments of Genetics and Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Matti Cervin
- Department of Clinical Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
| | - Henrik Larsson
- Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- School of Medical Sciences, Örebro Universitet, Örebro, Sweden
| | - Paul Lichtenstein
- Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - David Mataix-Cols
- Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Anna Sidorchuk
- Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
- Stockholm Health Care Services, Region Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
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Metzger S, Gracia P. Gender differences in mental health following the transition into parenthood: Longitudinal evidence from the UK. ADVANCES IN LIFE COURSE RESEARCH 2023; 56:100550. [PMID: 38054884 DOI: 10.1016/j.alcr.2023.100550] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2022] [Revised: 04/29/2023] [Accepted: 05/06/2023] [Indexed: 12/07/2023]
Abstract
Previous studies have largely omitted a dynamic analysis of how the transition into parenthood shapes gender differences in mental health trajectories. This study adopts a life course approach to examine how transitioning into parenthood affects men's and women's mental health across multiple domains over time, using large-scale panel data from the 'UK Household Longitudinal Study' (2009-2020). Results from fixed effects models with discrete-time trends show that: (1) women's mental health is more largely affected by parenthood than men's; (2) women's overall mental health shows stable improvements following childbirth, while men's shows mostly insignificant changes; (3) role and social functioning are largely improved among women following childbirth, but only marginally among men; (4) emotional functioning and vitality demonstrate the counteracting effects of parenthood for both genders, with increases in feeling happy but a deterioration in feeling calm and having energy, particularly during care-intensive years; (5) women show larger variations by socioeconomic characteristics than men, with women from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and working full-time experiencing smaller mental health benefits from parenthood compared to less privileged women or having lower paid work constraints. Overall, transitioning to parenthood leads to distinct changes in mental health domains with heterogeneous effects across genders and socioeconomic groups.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Pablo Gracia
- Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
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Lee MA, Kang JH. Does having children matter? Associations between transitions in work-family role combinations and depressive symptoms among married women in Korea. SSM Popul Health 2023; 22:101405. [PMID: 37128357 PMCID: PMC10148221 DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/10/2022] [Revised: 04/08/2023] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Although having a variety of roles is generally beneficial for mental health, little is known about the relationships between work-family role combinations and depressive symptoms among married women in Korea, where child rearing is strongly considered a mother's responsibility. This study examines how the four types of work-family role combinations may be associated with depressive symptoms among married Korean women younger than 50 years old. Data were collected from 2012 through 2020 in five surveys by the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women & Families. In total, 4811 married women (14,851 person-period observations) were analyzed using regression models with fixed effects. This enabled estimation of the within-person effects of transitions in work-family role combinations on depressive symptoms. Work-family role combinations were categorized as follows based on whether respondents had a job or at least one child: having both worker and mother roles, having a worker role only, having neither a worker nor a mother role, and having a mother role only. The findings indicate that married women who had only a mother role had more severe depressive symptoms than the other three groups. However, after controlling for whether respondents had a preschool-aged child, only those with both worker and mother roles had significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms compared with those with a mother role only. This study suggests that transitioning to being a working mother from a full-time mother may benefit the mental health of married Korean women. Furthermore, whether married women have a child critically impacts their mental health more than the number of roles. Raising a preschool-aged child seems to potentially be especially stressful for married Korean women. Working outside the home can protect the mental health of married Korean mothers who are affected by the social pressure to immerse themselves in child-rearing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Min-Ah Lee
- Department of Sociology, Chung-Ang University, 84 Heukseok-Ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, 06974, South Korea
| | - Jeong-han Kang
- Department of Sociology, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, South Korea
- Corresponding author. Department of Sociology, Yonsei Univesrity, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, 03722, South Korea
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Cabib I, Budnevich-Portales C, Azar A. Adulthood Employment Trajectories and Later Life Mental Health before and after the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH 2022; 19:13936. [PMID: 36360816 PMCID: PMC9658652 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph192113936] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2022] [Revised: 10/18/2022] [Accepted: 10/24/2022] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND This life course study has two aims. First, to explore how diverse employment trajectories across adulthood are related to older people's mental health in Chile, a country with no research in this field, and second, to analyze these associations before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS We use data from the nationally-representative and longitudinal 'Chilean Social Protection Survey' sequence analysis to reconstruct employment trajectory types, and bivariate and multivariate analyses to measure their association with depressive symptoms. RESULTS Our findings indicate that formal labor force patterns in adulthood show the lowest burden of depressive symptomology before and after the onset of the overwhelming COVID-19 pandemic when controlling for traditional risk factors. CONCLUSION We emphasize that policymakers in both the labor market and public health domains must consider the relationship between informal employment pathways in adulthood and poorer mental health in old age. Public policies should improve the conditions and quality of jobs during adulthood and promote more formalization in the labor market to address the high uncertainty involving low social protection, which is strongly associated with severe mental health problems in later life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ignacio Cabib
- Instituto de Sociología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, Chile
- Departamento de Salud Pública, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 7820436, Chile
- Centro UC Estudios de Vejez y Envejecimiento, Santiago 7820436, Chile
| | - Carlos Budnevich-Portales
- Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8330015, Chile
| | - Ariel Azar
- Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
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Uccheddu D, Emery T, Gauthier AH, Steverink N. Gendered work-family life courses and late-life physical functioning: A comparative analysis from 28 European countries. ADVANCES IN LIFE COURSE RESEARCH 2022; 53:100495. [PMID: 36652213 DOI: 10.1016/j.alcr.2022.100495] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2020] [Revised: 06/09/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Combining work and family roles can have beneficial consequences on health but could also result in chronic stress and adverse health outcomes at older ages. This study aimed to examine combined employment, parenthood, and partnership histories of men and women during the childbearing period (ages 15-49), and to investigate the links of these work and family roles with physical functioning later in life. We used data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) with retrospective information on employment, parenthood, and partnership histories for 18,057 men and 20,072 women (n = 38,129) living in 28 different countries belonging to six European welfare clusters. We applied multichannel sequence analysis (MCSQA) and hierarchical clustering to group work-family trajectories into 12 clusters for men and 15 clusters for women. We assessed the association between work-family life courses and grip strength by estimating multivariable linear regression models. Delayed work and family transitions, unstable employment, and the absence of combinations of work and family roles between age 15 and 49 were associated with weaker grip strength in later life for both men and women. Results differed by gender and were framed by the welfare context in which gendered work and family responsibilities unfold across individual life courses. The findings make an important contribution to the domain of gender and health in later life and stress the need to engage more with issues related to the mechanisms linking work and family trajectories to poor health in later life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Damiano Uccheddu
- University of Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium; Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI-KNAW), The Hague, the Netherlands; Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
| | - Tom Emery
- Department of Public Administration and Sociology (DPAS), Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB), Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
| | - Anne H Gauthier
- Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI-KNAW), The Hague, the Netherlands; Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
| | - Nardi Steverink
- Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands; Department of Health Psychology, University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
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