Perceived Fairness in Household Labor and Depressive Symptoms: The Moderating Role of Social Support

Prior research has consistently linked inequities in the division of household labor to poorer mental health outcomes among women, including elevated depressive symptoms (Bird, 1999; Khawaja & Habib, 2007; Kalmijn & Monden, 2012). This supports the equity framework, suggesting that a more equal division of household labor between married couples is associated with lower psychological distress rather than organizing tasks based on traditional roles. Consistent with this perspective, husbands’ lower involvement in housework has been associated with greater psychological distress, marital dissatisfaction, and unhappiness among wives, emphasizing unfairness in household labor as a salient relational stressor (Khawaja & Habib, 2007; Claffey & Mickelson, 2009). However, evidence also suggests that women’s psychological distress is more strongly associated with perceived fairness in household labor than with the absolute amount of labor performed (Bird 1999; Kalmijn & Monden, 2012). Additionally, perceived fairness has been identified as a key psychological mechanism linking the division of household labor to emotional distress, suggesting that the subjective evaluation of equity may be especially consequential for women’s mental health (Claffey & Mickelson, 2009). Despite the well-established link between perceived fairness in household labor and depressive symptoms, no previous research has examined factors that may help buffer this relationship. One potential protective factor is social support, which has been consistently linked to lower depressive symptoms (e.g., Kawamura & Brown, 2010; Li & Wu, 2026). For example, reduced social support from family, friends, spouses, and financial sources has been associated with a higher risk of major depressive disorder (Li & Wu, 2026). Given this association between social support and lower depressive symptoms, social support may help attenuate the negative effects that perceived unfairness in household labor has on depressive symptoms. Therefore, the present study examines the association between perceived fairness in household labor and depressive symptoms among married women and tests whether social support from spouse, family, and friends moderates this association.