Taking Its Toll: The Influence of Paid and Unpaid Work on Women's Well-Being

This paper examines gender differences in the impact of paid and unpaid productive activities on well-being. Using recent Canadian data, we examine the time spent by prime-age women and men (25 – 54) on paid work, childcare, eldercare, household work, volunteering, and education, and then assess its impact on stress and work-life balance. Using multivariate analyses, we show that women's greater hours of unpaid work contribute to women experiencing more stress than men, and of that work, hours spent on eldercare and housework are more stressful than those spent on childcare. We also examine the influence of job characteristics and spouses' paid and unpaid work time on stress. Neither spouse's unpaid work nor most job characteristics alleviate stress, once work hours are controlled. However, the evidence suggests that women, more so than men, use strategies such as self-employment to improve work-life balance.