Parenting Stress and Marital Satisfaction among Dual-earner Families

맞벌이가족의 부모역할 긴장과 부부관계

The purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of various stressors among dual-earner families on parenting stress and marital satisfaction. Using a survey data collected from 168 dual-earner couples, this study investigated impact of various stressors, including husband division of labor, the satisfaction of childcare arrangement, husband's support on wife's outside work, family socioeconomic status, and strains from job. The finding suggested that, after controlling background variables(length of marriage, the number of children, and family income), high husbands' support on wife's outside work and low strains about their work hours had influenced on higher parenting stress among fathers, while high strains about their work hours had related to high parenting stress among mothers. It also found that high satisfaction on childcare arrangement and low depression were the factors predicting higher marital satisfaction of mothers, and high support on their wife's outside work, low work role strain, low depression, and low parenting stress had influenced on higher marital satisfaction among fathers. Discussions and recommendations for future research were added.