IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v40y1995i2p199-212.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Women's employment, marriage, motherhood and mortality: A test of the multiple role and role accumulation hypotheses

Author

Listed:
  • Martikainen, Pekka

Abstract

Two contrasting hypotheses on the effects of combining marital, parental and work roles on mortality are analysed in this paper. The 'multiple role' hypothesis suggests that the effects are harmful, but the 'role accumulation' hypothesis argues that the benefits will outweigh the possible harmful effects. This paper uses record linkage data for all 35-64 year-old non-pensioned Finnish women to examine the two hypotheses. Women with all three roles of wife, mother and employee had low mortality. This, however, was a reflection of the main effects of these three variables. Only lone mothers with >1 child--about 4% of the study population--were characterized as having a somewhat deviant mortality from what was to be expected on the basis of the main effects model. The high mortality in this group was mainly due to causes of death related to accidents and violence and circulatory diseases. Further analysis indicated that the excess mortality among lone mothers with two or more children and the lack of interactions for any other role constellation was similar in all age and educational groups. It is concluded that neither of the hypotheses on multiple roles are very relevant for the analysis of female mortality and that more attention should be devoted to understanding the contribution of possible selection effects leading to marriage and motherhood and the contribution of the 'healthy worker effect' in creating low mortality for the employed.

Suggested Citation

  • Martikainen, Pekka, 1995. "Women's employment, marriage, motherhood and mortality: A test of the multiple role and role accumulation hypotheses," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 199-212, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:40:y:1995:i:2:p:199-212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(94)E0065-Z
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tabea Bucher-Koenen & Helmut Farbmacher & Raphael Guber & Johan Vikström, 2020. "Double Trouble: The Burden of Child-rearing and Working on Maternal Mortality," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(2), pages 559-576, April.
    2. E. Hill & Jenet Erickson & Kaylene Fellows & Giuseppe Martinengo & Sarah Allen, 2014. "Work and Family over the Life Course: Do Older Workers Differ?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 1-13, March.
    3. Michael Rendall & Margaret Weden & Melissa Favreault & Hilary Waldron, 2011. "The Protective Effect of Marriage for Survival: A Review and Update," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 481-506, May.
    4. Robin S. Högnäs & David J. Roelfs & Eran Shor & Christa Moore & Thomas Reece, 2017. "J-Curve? A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of Parity and Parental Mortality," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 36(2), pages 273-308, April.
    5. Sekine, Michikazu & Chandola, Tarani & Martikainen, Pekka & Marmot, Michael & Kagamimori, Sadanobu, 2006. "Socioeconomic inequalities in physical and mental functioning of Japanese civil servants: Explanations from work and family characteristics," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 430-445, July.
    6. Karen van Hedel & Heta Moustgaard & Mikko Myrskylä & Pekka Martikainen, 2021. "Work-family typologies and mental health among women in early working ages," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2021-015, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    7. Eran Shor & David Roelfs & Misty Curreli & Lynn Clemow & Matthew Burg & Joseph Schwartz, 2012. "Widowhood and Mortality: A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(2), pages 575-606, May.
    8. Sabbath, Erika L. & Mejía-Guevara, Iván & Noelke, Clemens & Berkman, Lisa F., 2015. "The long-term mortality impact of combined job strain and family circumstances: A life course analysis of working American mothers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 111-119.
    9. Jennifer Montez & Erika Sabbath & M. Glymour & Lisa Berkman, 2014. "Trends in Work–Family Context Among U.S. Women by Education Level, 1976 to 2011," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 33(5), pages 629-648, October.
    10. Hossain, Babul & James, K.S., 2024. "Economics of widowhood mortality in adult women in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    11. Shor, Eran & Roelfs, David J. & Bugyi, Paul & Schwartz, Joseph E., 2012. "Meta-analysis of marital dissolution and mortality: Reevaluating the intersection of gender and age," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 46-59.
    12. Sperlich, Stefanie & Geyer, Siegfried, 2015. "The mediating effect of effort-reward imbalance in household and family work on the relationship between education and women's health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 58-65.
    13. Stefanie Sperlich & Sonja Arnhold-Kerri & Siegfried Geyer, 2011. "What accounts for depressive symptoms among mothers? The impact of socioeconomic status, family structure and psychosocial stress," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(4), pages 385-396, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:40:y:1995:i:2:p:199-212. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.