Summary
Depressed mood scores of employed and non-employed working-class mothers were found to differ significantly, and also to be affected by aspects of a mother's employment relationship and domestic environment. The latter two features were assessed through employment role attitude, reported interaction strain, home role attitude and child-care demands; the second and third of these variables were overall significantly associated with depressed mood. Reported low social support was also found to be correlated with depressed mood in the sample as a whole and in part-time employed mothers.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bebbington P, Hurry J, Tennant C, Sturt E, Wing JK (1981) Epidemiology of mental disorders in Camberwell. Psychol Med 11: 561–580
Brown GW, Harris, TO (1978) Social origins of depression. Tavistock, London
Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress. Psychosom Med 38:300–314
Cronbach LJ (1951) Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika 16:297–334
Gore S (1978) The effect of social support in moderating the health consequences of unemployment. J Health Soc Behav 19: 157–165
LaRocco JM, House JS, French JRP (1980) Social support, occupational stress and health. J Health Soc Behav 21:202–218
Miller PMcC, Ingham JG (1976) Friends, confidants and symptoms. Soc Psychiatry 11:51–58
Moss P, Plewis I (1977) Mental distress in mothers of pre-school children in Inner London. Psychol Med 7:641–652
Novick MR, Lewis C (1967) Coefficient alpha and the reliability of composite measurements. Psychometrika 32:1–13
Parry G, Warr P (1980) The measurement of mothers' work attitudes. J Occup Psychol 53:245–252
Pearlin LI (1975) Sex roles and depression. In: Datan N, Ginsberg LH (eds) Life span developmental psychology. Academic Press, London
Warr P, Parry G (1982) Paid employment and women's psychological well-being. Psychol Bull (in press)
Zung WWK (1965) A self-rating depression scale. Arch Gen Psychiatry 12:63–70
Zung WWK (1974) The measurement of affects: Depression and anxiety. In: Pichot P, Olivier-Martin R (eds) Psychological measurements in psychopharmacology. Karger, Basel
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Warr, P., Parry, G. Depressed mood in working-class mothers with and without paid employment. Soc Psychiatry 17, 161–165 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00583510
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00583510