Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana

Objectives This study aims to investigate (1) whether the health of working women with young children differs from that of working women without young children, and (2) which social factors mediate the relationship between economic and maternal role performance and health among mothers with young ch...

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Autores principales: Waterhouse, Philippa, Hill, Allan G., Hinde, Andrew
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26537388
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10995-015-1839-2
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author Waterhouse, Philippa
Hill, Allan G.
Hinde, Andrew
author_facet Waterhouse, Philippa
Hill, Allan G.
Hinde, Andrew
author_sort Waterhouse, Philippa
collection PubMed
description Objectives This study aims to investigate (1) whether the health of working women with young children differs from that of working women without young children, and (2) which social factors mediate the relationship between economic and maternal role performance and health among mothers with young children. Methods The analyses uses panel data from 697 women present in both waves of the Women’s Health Study for Accra (WHSA-I and WHSA-II); a community based study of women aged 18 years and older in the Accra Metropolitan Area of Ghana conducted in 2003 and 2008–2009. Change in physical and mental health between the survey waves is compared between women with a biological child alive at WHSA-II and born since WHSA-I and women without a living biological child at WHSA-II born in the interval. To account for attrition between the two survey waves selection models were used with unconditional change score models being used as the outcome model. Results We found in our sample of working women that those who had a child born between WHSA-I and WHSA-II who was still alive at WHSA-II did not experience a change in mental or physical health different from other women. Among working women with young children, educational status, relationship to the household head and household demography were associated with change in mental health at the 5 % level, whilst migration status and household demography was associated with change in physical health scores. Conclusion The results suggest there are no health penalties of combining work and childbearing among women with young children in Accra, Ghana.
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spelling pubmed-47377962016-02-09 Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana Waterhouse, Philippa Hill, Allan G. Hinde, Andrew Matern Child Health J Article Objectives This study aims to investigate (1) whether the health of working women with young children differs from that of working women without young children, and (2) which social factors mediate the relationship between economic and maternal role performance and health among mothers with young children. Methods The analyses uses panel data from 697 women present in both waves of the Women’s Health Study for Accra (WHSA-I and WHSA-II); a community based study of women aged 18 years and older in the Accra Metropolitan Area of Ghana conducted in 2003 and 2008–2009. Change in physical and mental health between the survey waves is compared between women with a biological child alive at WHSA-II and born since WHSA-I and women without a living biological child at WHSA-II born in the interval. To account for attrition between the two survey waves selection models were used with unconditional change score models being used as the outcome model. Results We found in our sample of working women that those who had a child born between WHSA-I and WHSA-II who was still alive at WHSA-II did not experience a change in mental or physical health different from other women. Among working women with young children, educational status, relationship to the household head and household demography were associated with change in mental health at the 5 % level, whilst migration status and household demography was associated with change in physical health scores. Conclusion The results suggest there are no health penalties of combining work and childbearing among women with young children in Accra, Ghana. Springer US 2015-11-04 2016 /pmc/articles/PMC4737796/ /pubmed/26537388 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10995-015-1839-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Waterhouse, Philippa
Hill, Allan G.
Hinde, Andrew
Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana
title Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana
title_full Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana
title_fullStr Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana
title_full_unstemmed Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana
title_short Childbearing and Economic Work: The Health Balance of Women in Accra, Ghana
title_sort childbearing and economic work: the health balance of women in accra, ghana
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737796/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26537388
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10995-015-1839-2
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