The wives of Mexican migrant workers may suffer poorer mental well-being - even if they feel freed of traditional gender roles in their husbands’ absence, a small study suggests.

Up until now, researchers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, note, studies on migration have largely ignored the women who remain at home. In surveys of 94 women from rural Mexican villages, the researchers found that wives of men who’d migrated to find work tended to score lower on a standard mental- health questionnaire.

This was despite the fact that wives of migrant workers were more likely to believe in gender equality than women whose husbands were at home.

In fact, the researchers found, these shifts from traditional views seemed to be one reason for the poorer mental well-being among migrant workers’ wives.

The findings, reported in the journal Health Care for Women International, stand in contrast to many studies in Western societies that have suggested that women’s mental well-being improves when they are free of traditional gender roles and beliefs.

But this may not be true in all cultures, or in situations where women are “forced” to take on traditionally masculine roles by necessity rather than choice, write Jared A. Wilkerson and his colleagues.

“The participants in this study were women from a culture characterized by very traditional gender roles who had accepted these traditional gender roles,” the researchers note.

Moving away from those beliefs, Wilkerson’s team speculates, may have made some women “feel pressured or ostracized by the traditional culture around them, pressure that could lead to a decline in mental health.”

The researchers acknowledge that the findings should be considered preliminary. However, they add, the hope is to bring attention to the potential health effects that migrant work has on the wives and families left behind.

SOURCE: Health Care for Women International, July 2009.