Gendered work-family trajectories and depression at older age

Abstract

Objectives: The paper identifies types of work-family trajectories of men and women and investigates their links with depression at older age.

Method: We use data from the Heinz Nixdorf Recall study, with retrospective information on employment histories and parenthood between age 20 and 50 (1482 men and 1537 women, born between 1925 and 1955). We apply sequence analysis and group trajectories into six clusters for each gender. We test their association with two alternative measures of depression: self-reported depressive symptoms and intake of antidepressant medication. Multivariate models exclude participants with early life depression and adjust for age, marital status, education, and income.

Results: We find clear differences of work-family trajectories between men and women, where women’s trajectories are generally more diverse, and include family leaves and returns into full or part-time work. For men, work-family trajectories are neither related to depressive symptoms nor to medication intake. In contrast, women who returned into full-time work after family leave show more depression than those who return part-time, both in terms of depressive symptoms and intake of antidepressant medication.

Conclusion: Our findings show gender differences in terms of work-family trajectories and their health-related consequences. In particular, findings suggest that mothers who return to full-time work are a vulnerable group for depression at older age and should be the focus of further research attention.

Keywords:

• Depression
• life course
• work-family trajectories

Acknowledgements

We thank the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation [Chairman: Martin Nixdorf; Past Chairman: Dr. jur. Gerhard Schmidt (deceased)] for their support of the HNR study. Final thanks go to Prof. Dr. Johannes Siegrist for his help during the writing process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This analyses was funded by the Research Commission of the Medical Faculty of the University Clinic Düsseldorf (FOKO Project 40/2014) and following up on the research project ‘Occupational health research in epidemiological Cohort studies’ (AeKo) supported by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV, Project Number: FP295). As staff of the Institute for Prevention and Occupational Medicine (IPA), BP and TB are employed at the ‘Berufsgenossenschaft Rohstoffe und chemische Industrie’ (BG RCI), a public body, which is a member of the sponsor DGUV. IPA is an independent research institute of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. The authors are independent from the German Social Accident Insurance in study design, access to the collected data, responsibility for data analysis and interpretation, and the right to publish. This study is also supported by the German Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF), and the German Aero-space Center [Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)]. Additional funding for the HNR study came from the German Research Council (DFG project: ER 155/6-2, SI 236/8-1, SI 236/9-1). The sponsor of the HNR study transferred the monitoring of the study to the German Ministry of Education and Science, Bonn using an international advisory board and quality control as well as event committee, but had no role concerning the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or writing the report. This study was also conducted in the frame of the German initiative “labor market participation at older ages” which is financed by the “Fund for the Future” of the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Research, North Rhine-Westphalia from 2016-2018.