Leisure, household activities affect cortisol levels among married couples

Saxbe DE. J Fam Psychol. 2011;25:271-281.

New data support a relationship between evening cortisol recovery and marital satisfaction, leisure time, paid work and housework among dual-income families.

Recent research suggests a connection between people’s daily cortisol excretion, their time spent at paid work and their spouses’ contributions to housework, according to a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

To explore the association between end-of-day cortisol recovery and spouses’ division of labor, researchers analyzed the daily activities of 30 families with two working parents and at least one child for 1 week. The median age of parents was 41 years, median number of children was two and median marriage length was 13 years. The median annual income between 2002 and 2005 was $100,000.

The researchers collected information about family activities via in situ observers on 2 weekdays and 2 weekend days, and family members self-collected four saliva samples for cortisol analysis on 3 weekdays. Parents completed questionnaires about marital quality at the study’s conclusion.

Results revealed that wives were usually engaged in housework (30.5% of observations), communication (18.5% of observations) and leisure (10.6% of observations). Husbands were also commonly observed participating in these activities, but usually spent more time engaged in leisure activities (19.4%) than wives and were less likely to engage in childcare. In addition, husbands who devoted more time to leisure and whose wives devoted less time to leisure experienced steeper declines in evening cortisol levels. A similar relationship was observed in women, although it was not statistically significant.

The researchers reported that men and women who engaged in more housework had higher evening cortisol levels and experienced less cortisol recovery from afternoon levels. Although husbands’ cortisol levels appeared unaffected by their wives’ participation in housework, husbands’ housework as well as their own housework were significant predictors of cortisol levels in wives. For instance, findings suggest that women who devoted more time to housework experienced higher cortisol levels than women whose husbands devoted more time to housework. Greater marital satisfaction also translated to lower evening cortisol and greater recovery from afternoon cortisol in women.

Because cortisol is associated with overall health and longevity, the researchers highlighted the potential importance of the division of daily labor between husbands and wives.

“Further research is needed to better understand how working couples and parents manage the challenges of daily life, and how their apportionment of housework and restorative activities affect their physical and psychological well-being,” the researchers wrote.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.

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