• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.521-532
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• 2011

The study's purpose was to clarify childcare's impact on the psychological well-being of fathers with an infant. This study included 1,250 households that used 15 nursery centers. The questionnaire asked about the fathers' age, income, working conditions, participation in childcare, recognition of sense of usefulness to their family, marital satisfaction, mental health, health-related quality of life(QOL), and the mothers' age, number of children, age of the youngest child, and working conditions. A casual model was examined using SEM. The results were as follows: first, fathers' participation in childcare contributed to health-related QOL through the recognition of feeling useful to their family. Second, fathers' participation in childcare contributed to marital satisfaction, directly and indirectly through health -related QOL and improved mental health. Third, fathers' participation in childcare contributed to health related QOL through the recognition of feelings of usefulness, marital satisfaction, and mental health, indirectly. These results suggest that promoting fathers' participation in childcare is important to help prevent many problems and to improve QOL.