Combining motherhood and full-time employment yields a significant "health burden" for women.
As their findings found greater similarities between mothers who work part-time with women who did not work at all, the researchers suggest that studies that do not differentiate between full- and part-time employment overlook important differences among women.
The analysis also yielded statistically significant correlations between marriage and health among women, but not men. In the most complex interaction model, previously married women (separated, divorced, or widowed) as well as cohabiting women were more likely to report poorer health than married women . Women who never married were also more likely to report poor health, but the association was not statistically significant.
(Source: Belinda Hewitt, Janeen Baxter, and Mark Western, "Family, Work, and Health: The Impact of Marriage, Parenthood, and Employment on Self-Reported Health of Australian Men and Women," Journal of Sociology 21 [March 2006]: 61-78.)
|