WOMEN, PAID EMPLOYMENT AND ILL-HEALTH IN BRITAIN AND FINLAND

The paper seeks to disentangle how similarities and differences between women's employment position in Britain and Finland are associated with inequalities in women's ill-health, using national surveys from 1986. In Finland, women participate fully in paid work, whereas British women are more likely to be full-time housewives or part-time employees. Unlike Finland, public provisions do not support the economic independence of British women. The degree of inequality in ill-health is greater among employed women in Finland than in Britain. Major differences between the two countries are the poor health of British housewives, and the impact of housing tenure and family roles on women's ill-health in Britain but not Finland. Previously married women who are not in paid employment in Britain have particularly poor health. Our findings suggest that in a society such as Britain where paid employment is not universal for women, women's family roles and housing quality affect their health, but this is not the case in Finland where women's participation in the labour market is near universal.