A longitudinal dyadic analysis of financial strain and mental distress among different-sex couples: the role of gender division of labor in income and housework

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

March 5, 2025

Summary:

Background:

Despite extensive research on the association between financial strain and mental distress, little is known about its spousal crossover effect in different-sex couples.

Methods:

Using nationally representative longitudinal dyadic data from the UK and fixed effect models, this study examines the dyadic relationship between financial strain and mental distress among couples, and the different relationship by gendered division of labor in income and housework.

Results:

Our findings reveal that for both the husband and wife, financial strain is not only associated with their own mental distress but also their spouses’ mental distress, although the spousal cross-over effects have smaller effect sizes. Next, the husband’s mental distress associated with his own financial strain decreases as his share of the couple’s income increases, while his income share does not significantly alleviate his wife’s mental distress related to her own or her husband’s financial strain. Lastly, the wife’s share of housework does not modify the effect of financial strain on her husband’s or her own mental distress. These findings suggest the protective role of the traditional breadwinner in alleviating the husband’s mental distress from his own financial strain, but not from his wife’s financial strain, while also highlighting the limited effects of housework in mitigating the psychological toll of financial strain on both partners.

Conclusions:

Overall, these findings provide valuable insights into our understanding of the relationship financial strain and mental distress by incorporating the dyadic perspective and gendered division of labor.

Published in

BMC Public Health

Volume

Volume: 25:871

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-22059-x

ISSN

14712458

Subjects

Notes

Open Access

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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