Women becoming the breadwinner of the family can result in a higher likelihood of mental health issues for both husbands and wives, research from Durham University Business School reveals.
The study, conducted by Dr Demid Getik, explores how mental health is related to income make-up within couples by examining the link between annual income rises for women and the number of clinical mental health diagnoses over a set period of time.
The study finds that as more women take on the breadwinner role in the household, the number of mental health related incidences also increases.
As wives begin earning more than their husbands, the probability of receiving a mental health diagnosis increases by as much as 8% for all those observed in the study, but by as much as 11% for the men.
The findings provide an important insight for society, as the traditional male breadwinner set-up of families is challenged.
“The share of married couples where the wife is the primary earner is rising globally,” says Dr Getik. “In both the United States and in Sweden, it has increased by approximately 25% since the start of the millennium. The results provide tangible evidence of relative income in couples playing an important role in mental health outcomes, even in a largely egalitarian society like Sweden.”
The study focused on heterosexual Swedish couples of working age who married in 2001 and whose individual incomes measured at just above or just below the equal earnings threshold. The study observed them over a ten-year period or until they divorced – a scenario which only occurred in 20% of the couples surveyed.
The marital data was obtained from the Population Register, whereas data on earnings was gathered from the Income and Tax register.
To better understand workplace dynamics, information was gathered from the Workplace Register and, to provide a binary indicator for whether an individual had been diagnosed with a mental health issue as the years passed, data was gathered from the National Patient Register.
This dataset allowed Dr Getik to identify that, while mental health is positively associated with both own and spousal absolute income, this relationship specifically in regards to the wife’s income is negative.
Contrary to what might be expected, the result more pronounced for urban and educated women. The types of mental health diagnoses also revealed a gendered difference. For men, mental health issues that arose as female earnings increased were more likely to be related to substance-related concerns, whereas women were more likely to experience neurotic and stress-related disorders.
The study did not find strong evidence for such diagnoses being driven by significant life events such as divorce, or as a result of workplace issues. However, in regards to workspaces, Dr Getik acknowledges it is possible that their environments and cultures can shape attitudes towards earnings and both professional and personal set-ups.
In light of this shift, the study’s findings provide important societal insights not only when it comes to reconsidering family dynamics, gender identities and mental health support.
Featured Photo by One zone Studio on Unsplash.