Gender inequalities in chronic inflammation, allostatic load and health: paid work, unpaid work and the role of childcare policy

There are gender differences in morbidity and mortality. Women outlive men; however, women experience a higher proportion of their lifetime in worse health. Proposed mechanisms through unpaid and paid work are particularly relevant to gender disparities among parents. Childcare policies may address some of these mechanisms.
Links between employment and health are well established and there are persistent gender differences in the access/uptake of (full-time) employment. In the UK, most of the gender inequalities in (full-time) employment have been explained by changes in women's labour market participation following the transition to motherhood and attributed to the high cost of childcare. Women are still more likely to take a (long) career break to have children, to work part-time, and to take up more of the unpaid domestic and care work. Consequently, they are more likely to experience burden from unpaid domestic/care or total unpaid and paid work. While part-time work may be protective against high burden and work-family conflict in contexts with little formal childcare support, it is also associated with a higher risk of being lower quality, with economic disadvantages and associated long-term adverse health consequences. To date, mediating (causal) pathways through paid and unpaid work linking gender and health remain under-researched.
Furthermore, the evidence on the (moderating) role of childcare policies in gender health inequalities is limited. Findings from other countries are contradictory and unlikely generalisable to the English policy context. Furthermore, only a few health outcomes have been considered, and none of the studies have used biomarker measures of psychological stress and directly addressed gender health inequalities.
To address these gaps, this PhD project aims to use causal inference approaches to provide a comprehensive understanding of gender inequalities in inflammation, allostatic load, mental health and self-reported health and the moderating role of parental status, household income, and the age of the youngest child. Furthermore, the project aims to assess the pathways mediating gender and health outcomes among parents and the moderating role of childcare policy in England.