TIME SPENT WORKING

This study examines the connection between the time that women and men spend on paid work and housework and psychological distress, and addresses the question whether gender differences in time spent on these activities account for the gender difference in psychological distress. A group (n =1,277) of employed and cohabiting women and men from the Swedish Level-of-Living Survey 2000 (LNU 2000) are analysed using OLS regression. Results show that time spent on housework explains part of the gender difference in psychological distress. Among women, paid working time and possibly time spent on housework are associated with low psychological distress. However, spending too much time on one role decreases the possible beneficial effect of the other, and this is mainly caused by the resulting increase in total role time. Men's level of psychological distress is not associated with hours of paid work or housework. The study also shows that the division of housework between women and men is unusually uneven in households where women have a long total role time. Thus, an increase in men's participation in housework could decrease the gender difference in psychological distress as well as the number of women experiencing a high workload.