WKSU News: Report says working moms are healthiest

Tuesday, August 21, 2012 Report says working moms are healthiest University of Akron study says education linked to wellness gap by WKSU's KABIR BHATIA	Reporter Kabir Bhatia

Karol Kirk keeps busy as a consultant pharmacist, and chasing Marianne and her two siblings

Courtesy of Carl Carlson

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A new report from the University of Akron says that working moms tend to be healthier at age 40 than their stay-at-home or chronically unemployed counterparts. WKSU's Kabir Bhatia reports on the surprising reasons for the wellness gap.

Report says working moms are healthiest

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The report looks at more than 2,500 women who became moms between 1978 and 1995. It found that the women who headed back into the workforce full-time soon after giving birth were likely to be healthier than women who stayed home.

And both groups were much healthier than women who were constantly looking for work, or working sporadically.

Akron sociology professor Adrianne Frech co-authored the report, and says it comes down to education.

“The amount of education that you have before you have your first child, that kind of selects you into whether you’re likely to work full-time. So more educated women are more likely to work full time after they have their first child. But more than that, your education continues to affect your health all throughout your life. And we saw that in our study. Education doesn’t just give you access to a better job. It gives you access to a different group of family and friends. It gives you access to the kind of cognitive skills you need to seek out a better doctor. We cannot overstate the relationships between education and health.”

"Persistently unemployed"
Frech says women who are in and out of the workforce -- often not by choice -- experience the highs and lows of finding rewarding work only to lose it and start the cycle again.

And the report sees a direct link between a lack of education and the mental and physical turmoil caused by job uncertainty.

“How often did pain you experience keep you from participating in your every day life? Do you have enough energy to go through the events that you need to in the course of your day? Do you have difficulty walking a block or more, or a mile or more?”

By contrast, women who worked full-time had greater mobility, more energy and less depression at age 40.

Three kids in her 40s
Relaxing with her daughters in the front yard on a cool summer evening, Karol Kirk of Hudson is a cross-section of the full-timers in the report. The consulting pharmacist became a first-time mom just two years ago. She and her husband, Joe, adopted a pair of toe-headed Russian orphans. Barrel-chested Michael sports a mischievous grin while his sister Audrey is quiet. A year after their arrival, Kirk gave birth to spitting-image daughter Maryanne.

These days, her out-of-home work week is about 45 hours, spread over four days each week. A family friend takes care of the children while she’s away. She says being a mother of three is tiring, but …

“It keeps me active and it also makes me more conscious of the food choices that I make because I realized I’m affecting other people besides myself. So I eat a lot more apples and fruit and fresh vegetables and things like that because I’m teaching my kids to eat that.

“So, I wish I had more time to exercise but I’m chasing them. It’s just not the formal classes but I am running after them, constantly.”

Why she waited
That’s likely one reason Kirk is in excellent health. Personal reasons led her to wait two decades after completing her college degree before starting a family. And she’s seen some negatives when women have kids too soon.

“I do know of people that I’ve worked with that have done it while they’re in school. And that’s really difficult. I mean they were really drained. Age is a factor, although they’ve come a long way with fertility treatments as far as for older women. It seems that a lot more women are waiting until they get their careers well-established and can take the time. Or (they) switch from a full-time career to something part-time once they’re established in their career path.”

The report from the University of Akron’s Adrianne Frech says just having a career path eliminates much of the physical and mental strain of instability and financial insecurity.

But for women who can’t get into the full-time tract, Frech says that offering childcare and transportation to single mothers could result in better employment options – and therefore better health -- for that population.

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