Working mums are healthier than stay-at-home mums
Here's some good news for working mothers. Juggling work, children
and home life is positively good for you.
Finally, there is some news to ease the guilt weighing down working
mothers the world over. An English study has found that women who juggle
a family with paid employment are healthier than stay-at-home mums.
Working mothers are also less likely to gain weight than home makers,
single women and childless women, the study found.
Published in the international Journal Of Epidemiology And Community
Health, the study was conducted by researchers from University College
of London (UCL), who examined data on 2604 women born in 1946.
Lead researcher of UCL's Department of Epidemiology and Public
Health, Dr. Anne McMunn, said the study found that women who occupied
multiple roles over the long term reported relatively good health at the
age of 54, and it appears this was a result of combining work and family
life.
Although it was already known that women who combined work with
motherhood and a good relationship had better health, Dr McMunn said
that this study has proven that women are healthy because they are
working and having children, rather than working and having children
because they are healthy.
"This study is the first to demonstrate that there may be potential
long-term health benefits of being able to participate in all areas of
society," Dr McMunn says.
Dr. Dorothy Broom, senior fellow at the National Centre for
Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University
in Canberra, says she is not surprised by the study's results.
"It's been demonstrated again and again over many decades that
working women are healthier," Dr Broom says. "But this study is really
important because you can see it isn't just a case of healthier women
working and the ones that are not so healthy staying at home."
Dr. Broom says part of this phenomenon could be due to the improved
social and support networks developed by people in paid employment.
"Stay-at-home mothers tend to be more isolated," she says. "Another
factor would be that if a woman stays at home full-time then the
household won't have as good an income. "Something that's been
documented again and again is that women's paid work makes a significant
contribution to financial wellbeing, which it is known to contribute to
other types of wellbeing, such as health."
Dr. Lou Wilson, a post-doctorate fellow at the University of
Adelaide's Centre for Labour Research, agrees. "People who are poor, or
socially disadvantaged, are unable to afford better healthcare,
healthier food, access to sporting facilities, and so on."
Dr. Wilson says that in Australia, and any western capitalist
society, having a job is considered a mark of success. So whether you
work or not will affect your self-esteem. "Not having a job in our
society attracts a certain stigma," he says. "If you have work you are
seen as being a good citizen.
So working is good for your mental health, because it gives you a
sense of worth." Sharon Pearson, chief executive officer of Sydney,
Brisbane and Melbourne-based life coach company. The Coaching Institute,
says being busy improves one's self-esteem.
"If we are very busy and needed, the action of coming through for
someone gives us a feeling of wellbeing and self-esteem, and because we
are feeling good about ourselves, we are more likely to take care of
ourselves," she says.Going out to work also gives us the perception that
more people are looking at us and assessing us, which may make us try
harder to be healthy, Pearson says.
"When you go to the office you are trying to impress other people
with how you present yourself," she says. "This increases the likelihood
of you wanting to appear fit and well."
Being in the workforce has the added advantage of shifting you out of
your comfort zone. "If we stay at home and just deal with the same
people all the time we develop a comfort zone, which means we have less
awareness of opportunities to stretch ourselves," Pearson says. "But the
more social interaction we have, the more we are reminded of
possibilities."
However, Dr. Broom warns that we shouldn't assume people will always
be better off in paid work. "We have done some work which has shown that
in terms of mental health, people in poor-quality jobs are worse off
than the unemployed, as opposed to those who are out of the workforce,
such as stay-at-home mums," she says. "And for a long time we have known
that being unemployed is bad for your health."
It all depends on the workplace regime. "We have found that when it
comes to mental health, a job that's stressful or insecure, or with poor
job control, leaves people worse off," says Dr Broom. "That is a real
concern because if these are the kinds of jobs there are going to be
more of in future, what the government saves on unemployment benefits it
will be spending on medical care."
Family-friendly
In spite of the increasing number of women in the workforce,
statistics show that Australian organisations are still not providing
enough flexibility for employees to balance work and family demands. The
government's Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency says
that only one in 10 enterprise agreements contain family-friendly
measures.
The balancing act
Full-time lawyer and mother-of-two Sonya Connolly says the benefits
she gets from work are mental stimulation and being exposed to a broad
range of people. She also says it boosts her self-esteem. But Connolly,
whose daughters are four and six, admits balancing full-time employment
with the care of her young family does take its toll.
"It is difficult to balance the demands of home and work," Connolly
says. "I would like to think that I am a good role model for my girls,
in terms of achieving things and being interested in pursuing a career.
But I would like to only work three days a week so that I could cook
better meals, be more involved with the girls and not be so tired."
Barbara Holmes, director of work and lifestyle consultancy Managing
Work Life Balance International, says women can experience stress when
they are managing children and a job.
"They are more stressed and a little more tired (than other women in
the workforce), and they are more likely to be taking sick leave to cope
with their sick children, than for themselves."
However, Holmes agrees that women who are being stimulated in the
workplace are benefiting.
It's about me
Men could come to the rescue of working women and at the same time
increase their own life expectancy. A Victoria University study, Killing
Time, found that while men had more leisure time than women they did not
spend it in "meaningful activity".
Many men reported feeling bored or lonely during their free time.
Boredom, the study says, is more likely to lead to increased drinking,
smoking and time on the couch watching TV, increasing the risk of
obesity and diabetes.
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