Owoo Nkechi S, Lambon-Quayefio Monica P
Department of Economics, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
PLoS One. 2021 Feb 2;16(2):e0245059. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245059. eCollection 2021.
This research paper aims to understand the effects of time spent in domestic work, including childcare, on women's mental health in Ghana. The paper adopted a triangulation convergence mixed methods approach. The quantitative information was sourced from two waves (2009/ 2014) of the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey (GSEPS) while qualitative information was obtained from in-depth interviews with couples and key informants from five (5) regions, representing diverse ethnic backgrounds, in Ghana. Employing fixed effects regressions and a multinomial logistic regression model with fixed effects, we find that domestic work contributes to poorer mental health outcomes among women. These results are consistent, even when we correct for potential self-selectivity of women into domestic work. We also examine whether the relationship is differentiated between women of higher and lower socioeconomic status. We find that women from wealthier households who spend increasing time in domestic work have higher odds of mental distress. These results are supported by the qualitative data- women indicate increasing stress levels from domestic work and while some husbands acknowledge the situation of their overburdened wives and make attempts, however minor, to help, others cite social norms and cultural expectations that act as a deterrent to men's assistance with domestic work. Efforts should be made to lessen the effects of social and cultural norms which continue to encourage gendered distributions of domestic work. This may be done through increased education, sensitization and general re-socialization of both men and women about the need for more egalitarian divisions of household work.
本研究论文旨在了解包括育儿在内的家务劳动时间对加纳女性心理健康的影响。该论文采用了三角收敛混合方法。定量信息来自加纳社会经济面板调查（GSEPS）的两期数据（2009年/2014年），而定性信息则通过对来自加纳五个代表不同种族背景地区的夫妻及关键信息提供者进行深入访谈获得。通过使用固定效应回归和具有固定效应的多项逻辑回归模型，我们发现家务劳动会导致女性心理健康状况较差。即使我们对女性从事家务劳动的潜在自我选择性进行校正，这些结果依然一致。我们还研究了这种关系在社会经济地位较高和较低的女性之间是否存在差异。我们发现，来自富裕家庭且花在家务劳动上时间增加的女性，出现精神困扰的几率更高。定性数据支持了这些结果——女性表示家务劳动带来的压力越来越大，虽然一些丈夫承认妻子负担过重的情况并试图提供帮助，尽管帮助不大，但另一些人则引用社会规范和文化期望，认为这些因素阻碍了男性协助做家务。应该努力减少社会和文化规范的影响，这些规范继续鼓励家务劳动的性别化分配。这可以通过加强对男性和女性的教育、提高认识以及进行关于更平等地分担家务必要性的全面再社会化来实现。
