Persistent Exposure to Work Family Conflict and Depressive Symptoms Among Korean Working Women: An Exploration of Temporal Patterns and Age Heterogeneity

Abstract

This study examines whether persistent exposure to work family conflict (WFC) is longitudinally associated with depressive symptoms and this association differs by age. Using eight waves of a nationally representative study of Korean women ( N = 6,544), individual fixed effects models were used to account for unobserved individual-level heterogeneity. Depressive symptoms increased immediately following exposure to WFC and peaked during the second wave of exposure. Since the peak, depressive symptoms have decreased and returned to the pre-exposure level by the fifth wave of exposure. While older women in their 60s experienced an increase in depressive symptoms only until the second wave of exposure, younger women in their 30s continued to experience an increase in depressive symptoms up to the fifth and subsequent waves of exposure. The results of this study inform the development of interventions to mitigate the long-term mental health effects of WFC among working women.