Parenting Research Centre | Maternal Employment and Mental Health

Maternal Employment and Mental Health

What impact do poor employment conditions and entitlements have on the mental health of mothers of young infants who return to the paid workforce?

The mental health of mothers of young infants is commonly assumed to be governed by individual psychological and hormonal factors. However, evidence is emerging that adverse external circumstances are also significant risk factors. This study investigates the relationship between employment conditions and entitlements and maternal wellbeing in the first year after childbirth.

The project is part of a wider collaboration between the Parenting Research Centre and the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) research team at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute (MCRI) known as the Parenting Australian Children Collaboration. This collaboration involves the analysis of data from the nationally representative LSAC to produce a series of papers on parenting and child wellbeing.

The aim of this analysis was to investigate the impact of poor job quality on maternal mental health following childbirth. Women participating in the LSAC project were included in this analysis if they had an infant younger than 12 months and had returned to employment in the first year after their baby’s birth.

The primary outcome for the study was maternal mental health, assessed using a standardised assessment (Kessler-6) that has been widely used in Australian research and measures common symptoms of psychological distress.

We found that even when accepted risk factors for maternal mental health were included in our analyses, poor job quality – including lack of access to paid parental leave, inflexible hours, low control and job insecurity – had a significant independent relationship to poorer maternal mental wellbeing.

These findings confirm the relevance of workplace and structural conditions to maternal wellbeing following childbirth. Policy implications include a need for improved access to maternity leave and other family-friendly workplace conditions for women returning to employment after having a baby in Australia.