Decomposition analysis of the difference in depressive symptoms between urban and rural employed people in China: Unpaid work plays an important role

Objective: Focusing on the relationship between unpaid labor and the occurrence of depressive symptoms, this study aimed to explore the factors influencing the inequality of depressive symptoms and their contribution among Chinese urban and rural employed people. Methods: This study utilized the 2020 China Family Panel Studies’ national resampling data. Multivariate logistic regression was used to explore the factors influencing the occurrence of depressive symptoms among employed persons in urban and rural areas in China, respectively. Fairlie decomposition was used to explore the contribution of influencing factors such as unpaid labor to the difference in the occurrence of depressive symptoms between urban and rural areas. Results: About 2,136 (21.70%) participants had depressive symptoms, of which 1,197 (24.75%) rural employed people had depressive symptoms and 939 (18.75%) urban employed people had depressive symptoms. The results of Fairlie decomposition analysis showed that 70.51% of the differences in depressive symptoms between urban and rural Chinese employed people could be explained by the covariates included in this study, including education level (52.44%), age (−11.91%), housework time (10.42%), self-rated health status (10.22%), self-rated income status (2.53%), exercise (2.36%), job satisfaction status (1.99%), chronic disease status (1.90%), and marital status (1.79%). Conclusion: This study found that the proportion of depressive symptoms was lower among urban employed residents than among rural employed residents. This difference was mainly caused by unpaid labor time, socioeconomic status, personal lifestyle, and health status. Housework, which is one of the unpaid labor, contributed to this depressive symptom difference in the third place.