Poverty, Work, and Mental Health: The Experience of Low-Income Mothers ¹

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between work and well-being for low-income mothers with young children. For these women, paid work can be a means of raising income and reducing the severity of poverty, yet it is likely to offer low wages, few benefits, and few opportunities for advancement while reducing considerably the time and energy needed to perform the tasks associated with motherhood. Because of the stresses of poverty and the responsibility for young children, low- income mothers are a high-risk group for such mental health problems as depression.² An important consideration of this study is to determine whether work is a protective factor for these women or simply an additional stress.

The authors express their gratitude to Stephen Piper and to members of the Stress and Families Project staff, including Diana Dill, Ellen Feld, Elizabeth Greywolf, Cynthia Longfellow, Nancy Marshall, Maureen Reese, Linda Tsang, and Susan Zur, who reviewed earlier drafts of this paper. Linda Tsang also organized much of the case history material for the paper.