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I'd say this is probably due to social isolation... Being a stay-at-home-mom can be excruciatingly lonely and isolating, and it's a big struggle. I've often fantasized about going back to work just to be able to have an identity outside of my kids and to see people outside my home on a regular basis. We have no family where we are, and all of my close friends have moved away. Pre-babies I would have just gone out and joined a club or sport or found an activity to do so that I could make friends, but for the past three years I have been house-bound, excepting the grocery store (where I know all the cashiers by name and look forward to seeing them) and sometimes the gym. I have worked very hard to make friends with other moms in my own neighborhood, and this has become my lifeline in a lot of ways. Yes, part-time work has often seemed very attractive, and I know several moms that have gone back to work because they are so isolated and lonely. It is very easy to slip into depression like this, especially if it's in the immediate post-partum months and there's no one around for the mom to lean on, and if the husband is out making the money then he's not available for emotional support. Women are waaayyy under-prepared to be happy, mentally-healthy housewives. We prep and groom our whole lives to have a career, and then we're whisked away overnight from being a part of the world at large into an isolated bubble, and you can no longer participate in nearly any activity you once enjoyed (try reading in the library with two tiny, squirmy, handsy, demanding creatures), you can't do much of anything at all, and you have no one to share any of this with. There is no one to talk to, no one at all there, and everything is different. Many, many moms get depressed like this. Moms are happier loving on and spending time with and bonding with their children vs living with the heavy "mom guilt" that comes with leaving your kids in someone else's care. That being said, I think the self-abnegation that is required - especially during the infant years - is severely underappreciated and because of this a lot of moms are very ill-equipped to cope with the changes and isolation. They prefer to go back to work, where they have some semblance of a community and solid identity.