Childbearing and economic work: the health balance of women in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

Results from the Women’s Health Study of Accra (WHSA) indicate that children only have a small short-term influence on female engagement in the labour force in the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA), Ghana, with women returning to work soon after giving birth. Using the WHSA this study aimed to explore quantitatively the relationship between physical and mental health and work and maternal role performance among women with young children. We used data from 697 women present and working in Wave-I (2003) and Wave-II (2008-2009) of the WHSA. To account for attrition between the two survey waves selection models were used to analyse the data with unconditional change score models being used as the outcome model. We found change in either physical or mental health did not differ significantly between women with a child alive at the WHSA II born in the survey interval and women without. For working women who experienced a birth in the survey interval, educational attainment, whether a woman was born in the Greater Accra region, relationship to household head at WHSA I and the number of males and females aged 16-54 years present in the household at WHSA I were significantly associated with change in mental health scores at the 1 or 5% level controlling for attrition. Whether a woman was born in the Greater Accra region was also significantly associated with change in physical health scores

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