WOMEN juggling paid work and the unpaid care of their families are in better mental and physical health than those who stay home.

And younger women in their 20s are more likely to be stressed than their mothers or grandmothers, a 10-year study of 40,000 Australian women found.

Unlike the myth of the grumpy old woman, the research has shown that as women get older they don't get crankier or rapidly lose their faculties.

But fears that 10 years of dieting have achieved little have been confirmed, with women in their 20s and 50s adding at least half a kilo a year in weight.

The landmark study will continue to track the health of the women, from three generational age groups, for at least another decade, but figures were released yesterday to mark the mid-point of the research.
The women, aged 18 to 23, 45 to 50, and 70 to 75 when the study began in 1996, have committed to extensive three-yearly surveys of their physical and mental health.

The work so far has found employed women have the best physical and mental health, and unemployed women the worst.

The health of middle-aged women who consistently remain in paid work is better than those who do not do paid work, and also better than women who moved in and out of the paid workforce during the survey.

As the women have aged, many have moved from part-time to full-time work, rather than retiring.

The older women surveyed scored highly on measures of positive mental health, despite major life challenges such as widowhood, the study found.

Younger women had higher levels of stress than the middle-aged or older women, and they continued to be stressed through their 20s.

Urban life, study, relationship breakdowns and moving house caused most worries.

But major life transitions regarded by many as stressful - such as motherhood, marriage and starting work - were associated with decreased stress.

The study has highlighted the growing problem of obesity, with weight gains most significant in those living outside the cities.

On average, younger women in the study have added 649g a year to their weight, and middle-aged women 494g a year.

But the older women on average shed 162g a year.

Younger women had the lowest average weight, and the middle-aged women were the heaviest, but the younger women put on more weight over the first decade of the study than those a generation older.

And young rural women gained weight faster than any other group.

When the first survey was conducted in 1996, a third of the older generation of women said they were in excellent or very good health. Less than 5 per cent said their health was poor.

Those figures did not change when the second survey was conducted in 2002.

And now 69 per cent of the older women are still living in their homes, more than 90 per cent are able to perform independent activities of daily living such as cooking and bathing, and more than 80 per cent had no hearing or sight difficulties.

Almost half the older women lived alone, 43 per cent did volunteer work and 39 per cent cared for children.

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, launching the interim report, promised that funding would continue, and praised his Labor predecessor for setting up the study.