Derived Identity and Depressive Symptomatology in Women Differing in Marital and Employment Status

Abstract

Derived identity, defined as a sense of self that is overly influenced by and dependent upon relationships with significant others, and depressive symptomatology, measured by the CES-D scale, were assessed in a sample of 564 adult women classified into one of six marital-employment status groups: married professional, single professional, married nonprofessional, single nonprofessional, married nonemployed, and single nonemployed. Married women were found to report more derived identity than single women and, when age effects were controlled, married women also had higher CES-D scores than single women. Employment status results in aggregate indicated that for women of equal education: (1) employment outside the home, whether it be professional or nonprofessional, is related to a more autonomous sense of self than nonemployment and (2) employment outside the home is not associated with lower CES-D scores than nonemployment. Derived identity and depression were also found to be significantly correlated within the total sample and within each marital-employment status group.