ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2014
Gender differences in the mental health of single parents: New Zealand evidence from a household panel survey.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychological distress in single fathers and mothers - a Swedish population-based study.Scandinavian journal of public health · 2026Article
- Psychological Distress and Self-Rated Health Among Single Fathers and Mothers During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan.Journal of general and family medicine · 2026Article
- First-Time Parents' Bonding with Their Baby: A Longitudinal Study on Finnish Parents during the First Eight Months of Parenthood.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Self-Stigma and Mental Health in Divorced Single-Parent Women: Mediating Effect of Self-Esteem.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Pathways into single motherhood, re-partnering, and trajectories of antidepressant medication purchases.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2023Article
- Social, Community, and Cultural Factors Associated with Parental Stress in Fathers and Mothers.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Getting Better or Getting Worse? A Population-Based Study on Trends in Self-Rated Health among Single Mothers in Germany between 1994 and 2018.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- An Examination of COVID-19-Related Stressors among Parents.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2021Article
- Cohabiting and becoming a parent: associations with changes in physical activity in the 1970 British cohort study.BMC public health · 2020Article
- Single men seeking adoption.World journal of psychiatry · 2018Review
- Article
- Single parent adoption in India: Mental health and legal perspectives and the way forward.Journal of postgraduate medicineReview
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn many countries single parents report poorer mental health than partnered parents. This study investigates whether there are gender differences in the mental health of single parents in New Zealand (and whether any gender difference varies with that among partnered parents), and examines key social and demographic mediators that may account for this difference.
methodsWe used data on 905 single parents and 4,860 partnered parents from a New Zealand household panel survey that included the Kessler-10 measure of psychological distress. Linear regression analyses were used to investigate both interactions of gender and parental status, and confounding or mediation by other covariates.
resultsHigh/very high levels of psychological distress were reported by 15.7 % of single mothers and 9.1 % of single fathers, and 6.1 % of partnered mothers and 4.1 % of partnered fathers. In an Ordinary Least Squares regression of continuous K10 scores on gender, parental status and the interaction of both (plus adjustment for ethnicity, number of children and age), female single parents had a 1.46 higher K10 score than male single parents (95 % CI 0.48-2.44; 1.46). This difference was 0.98 (95 % CI -0.04 to 1.99) points greater than the gender difference among partnered parents. After controlling for further confounding or mediating covariates (educational level, labour force status and socioeconomic deprivation) both the gender difference among single parents (0.38, -0.56 to 1.31) and the interaction of gender and parental status (0.28 greater gender difference among single parents, -0.69 to 1.65) greatly reduced in magnitude and became non-significant, mainly due to adjustment for individual socioeconomic deprivation.
conclusionThe poorer mental health of single parents remains an important epidemiological phenomenon. Although research has produced mixed findings of the nature of gender differences in the mental health of single parents, our research adds to the increasing evidence that it is single mothers who have worse mental health. Our findings on the potential explanations of the gender difference in sole parent mental health suggest that socioeconomic deprivation is a key contributor.
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