The Complexities of Family Health: Predicting Women’s Employment

There is a well-documented relationship between health and employment, and among women in particular, research ties health of the workers themselves and their family members to employment outcomes. However, little research considers the health of multiple family members simultaneously. Building on research linking individual-level health to women’s employment, this article examines health as a family-level construct. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I explore how the number of chronic condition diagnoses reported by women and their family members relates to women’s employment, and consider potential variation by educational attainment. Results show that women’s number of diagnoses more consistently predicts employment than the number of diagnoses at the family level, and these effects do not vary by women’s education. This research emphasizes the importance of multidimensional health measures and the need for more research on the family context of women’s employment