For every dollar an American man makes, his equally qualified female counterpart makes just 82 cents. And according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, the consequences of this wage gap extend beyond the checking account—women who earn less than their male peers are at greater risk for anxiety and depression than those who are fairly compensated.
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Jonathan Platt, PhD candidate and fellow in epidemiology at Mailman, and his colleagues looked at a survey of 22,581 working adults Americans. According to press release, they found that among women whose income was lower than their male counterparts, the odds of having major depression were nearly 2 ½ times higher—and odds of anxiety were more than 4 times higher—than men matched for age, education, occupation, family composition, and other factors.
Yet when women’s income was greater than their male counterparts, women’s odds for having anxiety or depression was nearly equivalent to men!