Sick of becoming a mother: Causes and consequences of mental ill-health related to family formation
Main Supervisor: Erik Grönqvist
Co-supervisors: Emma Fransson, Stavros Iliadis, and Erica Lindahl
What is your educational background?
I studied Economics and Regional Development at Panteion University in Athens and then I did a master’s in Economics at Athens University of Economics and Business.
Why did you apply to WOMHER's interdisciplinary graduate school?
Firstly, I have always been interested in topics related to gender equality and the rights of women. WOMHER provides the opportunity for me to contribute to this literature through my Ph.D. thesis and reach my long-term goal which is to suggest policies that improve women’s lives. Secondly, WOMHER, as an interdisciplinary research centre, provides a unique opportunity for me to meet people from different departments, acquire new knowledge and understand concepts from an alternative point of view, very different from the economic standpoint. Finally, I applied to WOMHER because I consider women’s mental health a particularly interesting matter. Women are mothers, workers, and so much more and they face gender discrimination in their everyday lives. This multidimensional role of women in modern societies and their constant struggle for gender equality leads, most of the time, to the decline of a woman’s mental health. Therefore, I believe that this is a very important topic that is not covered extensively by the economic literature.
Tell us more about your research project?
Family formation has a negative impact on women’s position on the labor market: Mothers suffer from higher long-term sick-leave and impaired income development after the first child arrives. This has previously been linked to factors such as gender norms, incentives for specialization in the household, or a double burden. However, deteriorating mental health during and after pregnancy and childbirth can also contribute to increased sick-leave among women after family formation, and is a largely neglected mechanism. Understanding what leads to women's increased sickness absence and deteriorating income development is important for the design of an effective social-insurance and efforts for equal opportunities in the labor market. The aim of this project is to improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of this child penalty. The project addresses the following research questions: How does family formation effect somatic and mental illness for mothers? To what extent are women's increased sick leave mediated by a deteriorating health from pregnancy and delivery? To what extent are inequalities in health and income between women reinforced by family formation?
What do you hope the impact of this project to be?
From a policy perspective, it is important to further our understanding on the causes and consequences of the child effect because it affects the effective design of social insurance and family policy.
