The impact of the parental division of paid labour on depressive symptoms: The moderating role of social policies

Abstract

This study examines the association between the parental division of paid labour and depressive symptoms in a comparative perspective. It investigates how this relationship varies across couples in countries with different social policies using data from European Social Survey, and multilevel models with cross-level interactions between the parental division of paid labour and macro-level indicators of social policies. The results indicate that dual-earner couples report fewer depressive symptoms than parents in other types of families. This relative advantage of dual-earner couples varies across policy contexts. The benefits of a dual-earner model over a male breadwinner model are larger in countries where childcare services are easily available and do not disappear in countries with generous financial support from the state. Additional analyses reveal how these relationships differ across gender.