[Employment and married women's health in Korea; beneficial or harmful?].
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to investigate whether working married women in different occupational classes affected diverse health outcomes.


METHODS
We used data for married women aged 25-59 (N=2,273) from the 2005 National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey. Outcome measures included physical/mental and subjective/objective indicators (self-rated poor health, chronic diseases, depression, and suicidal ideation from reported results; metabolic syndrome and dyslipidemia from health examination results). Age-standardized prevalence and logistic regression were employed to assess health status according to three types of working groups (housewives, married women in manual jobs, married women in non-manual jobs). Sociodemographic factors (age, numbers of children under 7, education, household income) and health behaviors (health examination, sleep, rest, exercise, smoking, drinking) and a psychological factor (stress) were considered as covariates.


RESULTS
Non-manual married female workers in Korea showed better health status in all five health outcomes than housewives. The positive health effect for the non-manual group persisted in absolute (age-adjusted prevalence) and relative (odds ratio) measures, but multivariate analyses showed an insignificant association of the non-manual group with dyslipidemia. Manual female workers showed significantly higher age-adjusted prevalence of almost all health outcomes than housewives except chronic disease, but the associations disappeared after further adjustment for covariates regarding sleep, rest, and stress.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results suggest that examining the health impact of work on married women requires the consideration of occupational class.
Kim
Il Ho
IH
Center for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto.
Chun
Heeran
H
D000328:Adult; D004651:Employment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D017533:Marital Status / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009790:Occupations / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D016387:Women's Health