The impact of social and family-related factors on women's stress experience in household and family work.

OBJECTIVES

This study explores the contribution of social and family-related factors to women's experience of an effort-reward imbalance (ERI) in household and family work.

METHODS

Using a population-based sample of German mothers (n = 3,129), we performed stepwise logistic regression analysis in order to determine the relative impact of social and family-related factors on ERI.

RESULTS

All factors investigated showed a significant association with at least one ERI component. Considering all predictors simultaneously in the multivariate analysis resulted in a decrease in significance of socioeconomic status in explaining the effort-reward ratio while the impact on low reward partly remained significant. In addition, age of youngest child, number of children, lower levels of perceived social support, domestic work inequity and negative work-to-family spillover, irrespective of being half- or full-time employed, revealed to be important in predicting ERI.

CONCLUSIONS

The experience of ERI in domestic work is influenced by the social and family environment. Particularly among socially disadvantaged mothers, lack of social recognition for household and family work proved to be a relevant source of psychosocial stress.