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Are work demands associated with mental distress? Evidence from women in rural India

Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

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Abstract

Purpose

High work demands might be a determinant of poor mental health among women in low- and middle-income countries, especially in rural settings where women experience greater amounts of labor-intensive unpaid work. Research originating from such settings is lacking.

Methods

We estimated the cross-sectional association between work demands and mental distress among 3177 women living in 160 predominantly tribal communities in southern Rajasthan, India. A structured questionnaire captured the number of minutes women spent on various activities in the last 24 h, and we used this information to measure women’s work demands, including the total work amount, nature of work (e.g., housework), and type of work (e.g., cooking). Mental distress was measured with the Hindi version of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. We used negative binomial regression models to estimate the association between work demands (amount, nature, and type) and mental distress.

Results

On average, women spent more than 9.5 h a day on work activities. The most time, intensive work activity was caring for children, the elderly, or disabled (149 min). In adjusted models, we found a U-shaped association between work amount and mental distress. High amounts of housework were associated with higher distress, whereas paid work and farmwork amount were not. Certain types of housework, including collecting water and cleaning, were associated with increased distress scores.

Conclusions

We found an association between aspects of work demands and mental distress. Research in other contexts where women perform high amounts of unpaid work, particularly within the home or farm, is warranted.

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Acknowledgements

This work was carried out with financial support from the UK Government’s Department of International Development (DFID) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada. Robin Richardson was supported by the Spencer Foundation (#242794) and a fellowship from the Regroupement Stratégique Santé Mondiale du Réseau de Recherché en Santé des Populations du Québec. Arijit Nandi was supported by the Canada Research Chairs program. Sam Harper was partially supported by a Chercheur Boursier Junior 2 from the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 1A2, Canada

    Robin A. Richardson, Arijit Nandi & Sam Harper

  2. Institute for Health and Social Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Arijit Nandi & Sam Harper

  3. Centre for Health and Mental Health, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India

    Surinder Jaswal

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  1. Robin A. Richardson
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Correspondence to Robin A. Richardson.

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Appendix: Construction of household wealth index

Appendix: Construction of household wealth index

We summarized household wealth with a principle component analysis (PCA) using 27 indicators that are commonly used to measure wealth in India [29]. These indicators included housing characteristics (i.e., type of toilet facility, material of exterior wall, type of roofing, number of household members per total rooms in home, home electrification, and source of drinking water), the number of durables owned (i.e., number of cell phones, sewing machines, watches/clocks, electric stoves, wood stoves, fans, televisions, VCRs/CD players, radios, bikes, motorcycles, wells, grain storage cans, pressure cookers, chairs/stools, beds, tables, silver jewelry, gold jewelry, and wedding ornaments), property ownership (i.e., home ownership, amount of agricultural land owned), and whether the household had a savings account. We used a one component PCA that explained 27% of the variance.

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Richardson, R.A., Nandi, A., Jaswal, S. et al. Are work demands associated with mental distress? Evidence from women in rural India. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol 52, 1501–1511 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-017-1448-z

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