IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-01485768.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Gender career divide and women's disadvantage in depressive symptoms and physical limitations in France

Author

Listed:
  • Emmanuelle Cambois

    (INED - Institut national d'études démographiques)

  • Clémentine Garrouste

    (LEDa - Laboratoire d'Economie de Dauphine - IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Ariane Pailhé

    (INED - Institut national d'études démographiques)

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between women's disadvantage in mental health and physical functioning and gender differences in career backgrounds. Sexual division of labor persists and key career characteristics are overrepresented in women: low-skilled first job, downward occupational trajectory, interruptions. These interrelated characteristics are usually linked to poor health. Their overrepresentation in women may be related to the female-male health gap; however, it may not if overrepresentation transposed into substantially weaker associations with poor health outcomes. To address this question, we used the French population survey "Health and Occupational Trajectories" (2006) and focused on 45–74 year-old individuals who ever worked (n=7537). Past career characteristics were qualified by retrospective information. Logistic regressions identified past characteristics related to current depressive symptoms and physical limitations. Non-linear decomposition showed whether these characteristics contributed to the gender health gap, through their different distribution and/or association with health. The overrepresentation of unskilled first jobs, current and past inactivity and unemployment in women contributed to their excess depressive symptoms. These contributions were only slightly reduced by the weaker mental health-relatedness of current inactivity in women and increased by the stronger relatedness of low-skilled and self-employed first jobs. Overrepresentation of current inactivity, past interruptions and downward trajectories also contributed positively to women's excess physical limitations. Gender-specific career backgrounds were significantly linked to women's disadvantage in mental health and physical functioning. We need to further explore whether equalization of opportunities, especially at the early stages and in terms of career continuity, could help to reduce women's mental and physical health disadvantage.

Suggested Citation

  • Emmanuelle Cambois & Clémentine Garrouste & Ariane Pailhé, 2017. "Gender career divide and women's disadvantage in depressive symptoms and physical limitations in France," Post-Print hal-01485768, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01485768
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.12.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kristina Willeke & Patrick Janson & Katharina Zink & Carolin Stupp & Sarah Kittel-Schneider & Anne Berghöfer & Thomas Ewert & Ryan King & Peter U. Heuschmann & Andreas Zapf & Manfred Wildner & Thomas , 2021. "Occurrence of Mental Illness and Mental Health Risks among the Self-Employed: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-25, August.
    2. Bonsang, Eric & Caroli, Eve & Garrouste, Clémentine, 2021. "Gender heterogeneity in self-reported hypertension," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    3. Emmanuelle Cambois & Aïda Solé-Auró & Jean-Marie Robine, 2019. "Gender Differences in Disability and Economic Hardship in Older Europeans," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(4), pages 777-793, October.
    4. Apouey, Bénédicte H., 2018. "Preparation for old age in France: The roles of preferences and expectations," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 15-23.
    5. Emmanuelle Cambois & Géraldine Duthé & Abdramane Bassiahi Soura & Yacouba Compaoré, 2019. "The Patterns of Disability in the Peripheral Neighborhoods of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and the Male–Female Health‐Survival Paradox," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 45(4), pages 835-863, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01485768. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.