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Motherhood, Employment and the Development of Depression

A Replication of a Finding?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

G. W. Brown  and
A. Bifulco
G. W. Brown*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (University of London), 11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RA
A. Bifulco
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Science, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (University of London), 11 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3RA
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

A prospective inquiry of a largely working-class sample of women with children considers the effect of employment on risk of developing clinical depression. The hypothesis was that there would be a direct protective effect arising from employment once quality of other support was taken into account. In fact full-time working mothers were at high risk. This appeared to be explained by either prior work strain or a severe event involving ‘deviant’ behaviour on the part of husband/boyfriend or child. Neither factor was relevant for part-time workers. The severe events appeared to be particularly depressogenic for full-time workers because they represented either failure in the motherhood role or a sense of entrapment in an unrewarding work/domestic situation. However, those in part-time work had a low rate of onset compared with non-workers, and the difference appears to be related to non-working women feeling less secure about their marriages.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 156 , Issue 2 , February 1990 , pp. 169 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990

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