Social Science and Medicine
Volume 132, 2015, Pages 236-244

After spouses depart: Emotional wellbeing among nonmigrant Mexican mothers (Article)

Nobles J.* , Rubalcava L. , Teruel G.
  • a University of Wisconsin, 8128 Sewell Social Sciences, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, United States
  • b Centro de Analisis y Medicion del Bienestar Social A.C., Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas A.C, Mexico
  • c Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico

Abstract

Nonmigrant family members play a central role in facilitating Mexico-U.S. migration by maintaining families, sustaining social relationships, and overseeing household economic organization in sending communities. This study investigates changes to the emotional wellbeing of nonmigrant mothers when their partners reside in the United States. We hypothesize that partner migration affects mothers' wellbeing through three pathways: directly via the toll of spousal separation, and indirectly via changes to the economic profile of the sending household and through changes to mothers' household responsibilities. We test these relationships using data on 2813 mothers aged 18-44 in 2002 and measured in three waves (2002, 2005, 2009) of the Mexican Family Life Survey. We employ a fixed-effect estimation strategy that improves causal attribution of women's wellbeing to spousal residential location. We find evidence of increases in some forms of distress-sadness, crying, difficulty sleeping-when spouses are in the United States but no meaningful increase in depressive symptomology. Though partner emigration shifts several aspects of women's lives in sending households, changes to household resources or time allocation do not account for the moderate shifts in emotional duress associated with spousal absence. Importantly, additional tests reveal that we would observe large and significant associations between spousal migration and mothers' emotional wellbeing using a less rigorous estimation strategy, raising caution about the interpretation of cross-sectional studies evaluating wellbeing in sending homes. residence associated with some symptoms of distress among mothers. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.

Author Keywords

Mexico Migration Emotional health Transnational families

Index Keywords

prospective study Caregivers Spouses Prospective Studies human epidemiology Stress, Psychological mental stress time factor Time Factors ethnology Mexico gender identity United States Young Adult Humans migrant family psychology Adolescent Emigrants and Immigrants female spouse Mothers mother adult caregiver

Link
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-84927927646&doi=10.1016%2fj.socscimed.2014.11.009&partnerID=40&md5=40dbdb2dbf0f53bfbca23fba7624a0f1

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.11.009
ISSN: 02779536
Cited by: 12
Original Language: English