The Impact of Child Care Regimes on Depression in Europe.

• In Event: 343 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 11. Child and Maternal Health

Abstract

Women suffer about twice as often from depression as men. Researchers often point to the increase in women’s employment, not matched by an increase in men’s care work and housework, causing women to become burdened due to work/family conflict. In the current paper, we focus on the effect of state support for child care as a means to study the degree to which social policies degenderize child care responsibilities. In line with Fraser (1994, as well as Ciccia and Bleijenberg (2013) we differentiate between child care regimes based on the male breadwinner model, the one-and-a-half earner model, the caregiver parity model, the unsupported and the supported universal breadwinner model. In our analysis we compared parents from different types of households, among which the male breadwinner families, the dual earner families and the one-and-a-half earner families. Using data from the European Social Survey (2006 & 2012; N = 15,646 cohabiting parents), we examine the effect of the different child care regimes on the level of depression in men and women. Results show that the supported universal breadwinner model is best at buffering stressors related to childcare, followed by the one-and-a-half earner regime. Second, we find that parents in the one-and-a-half household types overall report the lowest levels of depression, while parents of the traditional male breadwinner households report highest levels of depression. Within the context of a regime that does not support male breadwinning, fulltime working men of breadwinner families report even more depressive complaints than their unemployed female spouses.

Authors

• Sarah Van de Velde, Ghent University

• Rossella Ciccia, University of Rome La Sapienza