The relationship between a less gender-stereotypical parenthood and alcohol-related care and death: a registry study of Swedish mothers and fathers.
BACKGROUND
In general men tend to drink more alcohol and experience more alcohol-related sickness, injuries and mortality than women. In this paper, the overall hypothesis was that increased gender similarity in the division of parental duties would lead to convergence in alcohol-related harm. The aim was to analyse whether the risk of alcohol harm differs between parents who fit a gender-stereotypical versus those with a less gender-stereotypical division of childcare and paid work.


METHODS
The study sample was a retrospective registry-based cohort study of all Swedish couples who had their first child together in 1978 (N = 49,120). A less gender-stereotypical parenthood was indicated by paternity leave for fathers (1978-1979) and full-time work for mothers (1980). The outcome was inpatient care and/or death caused by alcohol psychosis, alcoholism, liver disease, or alcohol intoxication in the two decades following (1981-2001). Our main statistical method was multivariate logistic regression with odds ratios used to estimate relative risks.


RESULTS
The main results show that fathers who took paternity leave had 18% lower risk of alcohol-related care and/or death than other fathers. Mothers who worked full-time about two years after having a child had 71% higher risk than mothers who were unemployed or worked part-time.


CONCLUSIONS
A less gender-stereotypical division of duties between parents in early parenthood may contribute to a long-term decreased gender disparity regarding risky alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm. In order to know more about the causal direction however, future research has to consider subjects' drinking patterns in the years prior to parenthood.
Månsdotter
Anna
A
Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Science, Division of Social Medicine, SE-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden. anna.mansdotter@ki.se
Backhans
Mona
M
Hallqvist
Johan
J
D000328:Adult; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D005220:Fathers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009790:Occupations / Q000145:classification; D016524:Parental Leave / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D016487:Parenting; D012042:Registries; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012737:Sex Factors; D013240:Stereotyping; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology
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