IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0245059.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mixed methods exploration of Ghanaian women’s domestic work, childcare and effects on their mental health

Author

Listed:
  • Nkechi S Owoo
  • Monica P Lambon-Quayefio

Abstract

This research paper aims to understand the effects of time spent in domestic work, including childcare, on women’s mental health in Ghana. The paper adopted a triangulation convergence mixed methods approach. The quantitative information was sourced from two waves (2009/ 2014) of the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey (GSEPS) while qualitative information was obtained from in-depth interviews with couples and key informants from five (5) regions, representing diverse ethnic backgrounds, in Ghana. Employing fixed effects regressions and a multinomial logistic regression model with fixed effects, we find that domestic work contributes to poorer mental health outcomes among women. These results are consistent, even when we correct for potential self-selectivity of women into domestic work. We also examine whether the relationship is differentiated between women of higher and lower socioeconomic status. We find that women from wealthier households who spend increasing time in domestic work have higher odds of mental distress. These results are supported by the qualitative data- women indicate increasing stress levels from domestic work and while some husbands acknowledge the situation of their overburdened wives and make attempts, however minor, to help, others cite social norms and cultural expectations that act as a deterrent to men’s assistance with domestic work. Efforts should be made to lessen the effects of social and cultural norms which continue to encourage gendered distributions of domestic work. This may be done through increased education, sensitization and general re-socialization of both men and women about the need for more egalitarian divisions of household work.

Suggested Citation

  • Nkechi S Owoo & Monica P Lambon-Quayefio, 2021. "Mixed methods exploration of Ghanaian women’s domestic work, childcare and effects on their mental health," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(2), pages 1-22, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0245059
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245059
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0245059&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0245059?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kelly M. Everard & Helen W. Lach & Edwin B. Fisher & M. Carolyn Baum, 2000. "Relationship of Activity and Social Support to the Functional Health of Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 55(4), pages 208-212.
    2. Myer, Landon & Stein, Dan J. & Grimsrud, Anna & Seedat, Soraya & Williams, David R., 2008. "Social determinants of psychological distress in a nationally-representative sample of South African adults," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1828-1840, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sem J. Duijndam & W. J. Wouter Botzen & Liselotte C. Hagedoorn & Philip Bubeck & Toon Haer & My Pham & Jeroen C. J. H. Aerts, 2023. "Drivers of migration intentions in coastal Vietnam under increased flood risk from sea level rise," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 176(2), pages 1-22, February.
    2. Change Zhu & Christine Walsh & Lulin Zhou & Xinjie Zhang, 2023. "Latent Classification Analysis of Leisure Activities and Their Impact on ADL, IADL and Cognitive Ability of Older Adults Based on CLHLS (2008–2018)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(2), pages 1-19, January.
    3. Laura Rossouw, 2015. "Poor Health Reporting: Do Poor South Africans Underestimate Their Health Needs?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-027, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Luo, Ye & Zhang, Zhenmei & Gu, Danan, 2015. "Education and mortality among older adults in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 134-142.
    5. Achyuta Adhvaryu & James Fenske & Anant Nyshadham, 2014. "Early Life Circumstance and Mental Health in Ghana," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-03, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    6. Ahmed Mohammad Al‐Smadi & Loai Issa Tawalbeh & Omar Salem Gammoh & Ala Fawzi Ashour & Ali Alshraifeen & Yazeed Mohammed Gougazeh, 2017. "Anxiety, stress, and quality of life among Iraqi refugees in Jordan: A cross sectional survey," Nursing & Health Sciences, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(1), pages 100-104, March.
    7. Achyuta Adhvaryu & James Fenske & Anant Nyshadham, 2019. "Early Life Circumstance and Adult Mental Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1516-1549.
    8. Hlengiwe P Madlala & Landon Myer & Thokozile R Malaba & Marie-Louise Newell, 2020. "Neurodevelopment of HIV-exposed uninfected children in Cape Town, South Africa," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-20, November.
    9. Yun-Hsuan Wu & Kellee White & Nancy L Fleischer & Bo Cai & Shing-Chia Chen & Spencer Moore, 2018. "Network-based and cohesion-based social capital and variations in depressive symptoms among Taiwanese adults," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 64(8), pages 726-736, December.
    10. Dury, Sarah & Stas, Lara & Switsers, Lise & Duppen, Daan & Domènech-Abella, Joan & Dierckx, Eva & Donder, Liesbeth De, 2021. "Gender-related differences in the relationship between social and activity participation and health and subjective well-being in later life," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    11. M Pilar Matud & Juan M Bethencourt & Ignacio Ibáñez, 2015. "Gender differences in psychological distress in Spain," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 61(6), pages 560-568, September.
    12. Luis Aranda & Martin Siyaranamual, 2014. "Are Smarter People Better Samaritans? Effect of Cognitive Abilities on Pro-Social Behaviors," Working Papers 2014:06, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    13. Pellowski, Jennifer A. & Barnett, Whitney & Kuo, Caroline C. & Koen, Nastassja & Zar, Heather J. & Stein, Dan J., 2017. "Investigating tangible and mental resources as predictors of perceived household food insecurity during pregnancy among women in a South African birth cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 76-84.
    14. Linda Kridahl, 2014. "Retirement and leisure: a longitudinal study using Swedish data," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 12(1), pages 141-168.
    15. Supa Pengpid & Karl Peltzer, 2021. "Prevalence and correlates of psychological distress among a national population-based sample of adults in Solomon Islands," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 67(6), pages 687-695, September.
    16. Anna Darbonne & Bert Uchino & Anthony Ong, 2013. "What Mediates Links Between Age and Well-being? A Test of Social Support and Interpersonal Conflict as Potential Interpersonal Pathways," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 951-963, June.
    17. Nilgun Kuru & Gulumser Kublay, 2017. "The effect of laughter therapy on the quality of life of nursing home residents," Journal of Clinical Nursing, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(21-22), pages 3354-3362, November.
    18. Achyuta Adhvaryu & Namrata Kala & Anant Nyshadham, 2018. "The Skills to Pay the Bills: Returns to On-the-job Soft Skills Training," NBER Working Papers 24313, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Esteban Calvo, 2006. "Does Working Longer Make People Healthier and Happier," Work Opportunity Briefs wob_2, Center for Retirement Research.
    20. Ohrnberger, Julius & Anselmi, Laura & Fichera, Eleonora & Sutton, Matt, 2020. "The effect of cash transfers on mental health: Opening the black box – A study from South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0245059. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.