Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is any difference between the dual residence couples and the single residence couples in terms of the situation of child care, development of their child and mother's parenting guilty or parenting stress. Also, this study aimed to explore the variables which influence parenting guilty and parenting stress of dual residence mothers. The 178 mothers of three to eight tear-old participated the survey. Half of them were dual residence mothers and another half were those of single residence. These two groups were matched in terms of the occupation of the mother and the age of the child. Major finding were as follows. 1) Compared with single residence couples, dual residence couples used multiple methods of child care. And they depended maternal families more than paternal ones as a care-giver. They also payed much more for the child care than single residence couples. 2) Children of the dual residence couples did not differ with those of the single residence couples in terms of cognitive and social development. 3) Dual residence mothers had more parenting guilty than those of single residence while these two groups did not differ in terms of parenting stress. 4) While dual residence mother's parenting guilty was significantly related with the amount of information provided by the paternal families, their parenting stress was significantly related with the frequencies of communicating with the husband, the mother's age, the flexibility of time in the mother's work place, the mother's orientation to the career, and the supports of the husband. In conclusion, dual residence families in Korea were not so negative as expected. Furthermore, this study suggests that the parenting difficulties of the dual residence mothers could be decreased by the change of social and economic situations and the psycho-social support of the husband.