Study: The longer the wife works, the more depressed the husband feels’

Study: The longer the wife works, the more depressed the husband feels’. April. 18, 2016 07:38. by 임현석기자 lhs@donga.com.

The level of depression a husband feels doubles when his wife works more than 60 hours per week than when his wife is a homemaker. A wife feels most depressed when her husband is unemployed, a study found.

A joint research team of medical school at Seoul National University and Yonsei University (department of preventive medicine) publicized its analysis on the level of depression arising from the working hours of spouses among 8,056 couples who participated in a national health and nutrition survey conducted between 2007 and 2012.

Husbands who replied they felt depressed when their wives were unemployed accounted for about 7.1 percent. This reading increased to 13 percent when the wife worked more than 60 hours per week. Among the husbands, 10.7 percent and 11 percent, respectively, replied they felt depressed when their wives worked less than 40 hours, and between 50 hours and 60 hours per week. This suggests that the level of depression the husbands feel increase in proportion to the number of their wives’ working hours.

In contrast, wives felt least depressed when their husbands worked between 40 hours and 50 hours per week. Wives felt more depressed when their husbands’ working hours increased or decreased from that. About 14 percent of the wives replied they felt depressed when their husbands worked between 40 hours and 50 hours per week. When the husband’s working hours exceeded 60 hours per week, 17 percent of the wives said they felt depressed. Some 20.4 percent of the wives, the highest portion, felt depressed when their husbands are jobless.

“If work-life balance is not maintained, not only the function as an individual but also the function of a family that takes care of each other will inevitably deteriorate,” a researcher at the study team said. “The government should consider cutting working hours as an agenda for the welfare of society and families, exerting efforts to reduce working hours.”