ROLE BURDENS - THE IMPACT OF EMPLOYMENT AND FAMILY RESPONSIBILITIES ON THE HEALTH-STATUS OF LATINO WOMEN

This paper explores the relative effects of employment and family resp onsibility on the perceived health status of Latino women. The data so urce analyzed for this study was the 1990 Panel Study of Income Dynami cs/Latino National Political Survey (PSID/LNPS) Early-Release File (n = 1,502). Regression analyses were used to investigate the contributio ns of variables associated with perceived health status, including soc iodemographics, Latino ethnicity, language, employment, and family res ponsibility. The results suggest that annual employment hours, occupat ion, and family responsibilities, such as child care and weekly housew ork, significantly affect self-reported health status of employed Lati nas. Both social causation and social selection may be underlying the associations found. The results suggest that there is need for the dev elopment of public policies that seek to increase Latinas' labor force participation rate since any expansion has the potential to have a po sitive impact on their health status.