Mixed methods exploration of Ghanaian women’s domestic work, childcare and effects on their mental health

Abstract

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.

The Physical Burden of Water Carrying and Women’s Psychosocial Well-Being: Evidence from Rural Nepal

“…Due to its undeniable necessity, carrying water is an everyday work task [10,11,29]. Our results are in line with those from high-income populations that showed that high chronic physical burden in the working environment adversely affects functioning and emotional distress [20,21], especially with challenging environmental demands and low resources [48]. Interestingly, quality of life was not related to the physical burden of water carrying.…”

“…Research on carrying heavy loads in general supports a potential relationship between water carrying and psychosocial well-being [20,21]. Excessive occupational workload adversely affects a person's emotional or physical energy and time available for other activities.…”

“…Research suggests that a gendered division of housework is one of the factors that generally contributes to the differences between men and women in regard to adverse health effects, such as higher psychosocial distress for women [25]. A study in Ghana also showed that strenuous domestic work had adverse effects on women's well-being [20]. Moreover, a study in Nepal showed that anxiety and depression were more prevalent among people who carried heavy loads [21].…”

Gender differences in the relationships between housework and metabolic markers: a longitudinal cohort study in China

“…First, Chronic stress may be a mechanism related to housework intensity and metabolic risk. Owoo et al found that women who performed high-intensity housework often experienced stress and illness [ 29 ]. Chronic stress is a process of mutual induction and activation between the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and the reninangiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) [ 30 , 31 ].…”

Integrative Community Therapy – interventive strategies in the reduction of depression symptoms in adolescents: A quasi‐experimental study

“…This higher prevalence of mental disorders in women can be explained by the differences between genders, including the hormonal changes that occur during puberty, puerperium, and climacteric periods (Albert 2015). In addition, there are cerebral differences according to gender, with some characteristics more common in women than in men regarding the perception of emotions and responses to negative emotional stimuli (Stevens & Hamann 2012); Furthermore, this higher prevalence of mental disorders in women may also be related to the overload of domestic work, greater responsibilities regarding children, lack of time for leisure (Owoo & Lambon‐Quayefio 2021), the high rates of violence that women are subjected to, whether psychological or physical (Oram et al . 2017; Santos & Monteiro 2018), and socioeconomic factors (Senicato et al .…”