ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the links of paid work to health. Paid work is associated with health benefits for both women and men—even in combination with family roles. However, combining work and family roles can lead to conflict, and the conflict seems to be greater for women. Women are seen as less dedicated to their work when they have children, and working mothers are regarded as less competent parents when they work. Yet, the work role provides women with resources that increase their sense of power in the family and control in their lives. One source of conflict is household labor. When husbands contribute to household labor or household labor is hired out, strain is reduced for women. The quality of the job is linked to health. Two aspects of the work environment that influence health are discrimination and sexual harassment. Women suffer from both access and treatment discrimination, the latter most notably in terms of pay disparity. There are supply-side and demand-side contributors to pay disparity, but the two are difficult to tease apart. Women are more likely than men to be victims of sexual harassment, and there are person by situation theories of sexual harassment.
