Employment and Married Women's Health in Korea; Beneficial or Harmful?.
10.3961/jpmph.2009.42.5.323
- Author:
Il Ho KIM
1
;
Heeran CHUN
Author Information
1. Center for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, Canada.
- Publication Type:Original Article ; English Abstract
- Keywords:
Occupational class;
Role conflict;
Role enhancement;
Women's health;
Work
- MeSH:
Adult;
Employment/*statistics & numerical data;
Female;
Health Behavior;
*Health Status;
Humans;
Korea/epidemiology;
Marital Status/*statistics & numerical data;
Middle Aged;
Occupations/*statistics & numerical data;
Stress, Psychological;
*Women's Health
- From:Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
2009;42(5):323-330
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate whether working married women in different occupational classes affected diverse health outcomes. METHODS: We used data for married women aged 25-59 (N=2,273) from the 2005 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey. Outcome measures included physical/mental and subjective/objective indicators (self-rated poor health, chronic diseases, depression, and suicidal ideation from reported results; metabolic syndrome and dyslipidemia from health examination results). Age-standardized prevalence and logistic regression were employed to assess health status according to three types of working groups (housewives, married women in manual jobs, married women in non-manual jobs). Sociodemographic factors (age, numbers of children under 7, education, household income) and health behaviors (health examination, sleep, rest, exercise, smoking, drinking) and a psychological factor (stress) were considered as covariates. RESULTS: Non-manual married female workers in Korea showed better health status in all five health outcomes than housewives. The positive health effect for the non-manual group persisted in absolute (age-adjusted prevalence) and relative (odds ratio) measures, but multivariate analyses showed an insignificant association of the non-manual group with dyslipidemia. Manual female workers showed significantly higher age-adjusted prevalence of almost all health outcomes than housewives except chronic disease, but the associations disappeared after further adjustment for covariates regarding sleep, rest, and stress. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that examining the health impact of work on married women requires the consideration of occupational class.
