Gendering, Psychic Rewards and the Effects of Husband’s and Wife’s Work on Each Other’s Health

Ross M. Stolzenberg, University of Chicago
Kristi Williams, Ohio State University

We develop a theoretical model of the process by which a workers work experiences can have substantial but different health effects on the worker and the worker’s spouse. This model is built on the pathogenic properties of psychological stress. Because work is a highly gendered activity, and because workers and their spouses are of opposite gender, the model predicts differences between the effect of husband’s work on wife’s health and wife’s work on husband’s health. At the empirical level, this paper reports analyses of the effects of husbands and wives perceptions of their paid and unpaid work characteristics on their own and each others health changes based on the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). We find gender differences in work effects that are consistent with our reasoning about effects of husbands and wifes work characteristics on each others health.