COVID-19 Onset, Parental Status, and Psychological Distress among Full-time Employed Heterosexual Adults in Dual-earning Relationships: The Explanatory Role of Work-family Conflict and Guilt

Abstract

We propose that the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions to daily life that followed had greater negative impact on the mental health, as measured by psychological distress, of employed parents than nonparents, because of an associated increase in both directions of work-family conflict and work-family guilt among this group of the population. To test this argument, we examined pooled data from two cross-sectional online surveys administered to heterosexual adults in dual-earning relationships living in the United States. The first data set was collected before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic ( N = 616), and the second data set was collected during the early months of the pandemic ( N = 454). Results of multivariate analyses show that distress increased between the two surveys, but only among parents, as compared with nonparents, irrespective of gender of the respondent, or age of the youngest child. This association is due to a change in work-family conflict and guilt between the two surveys: among parents, the COVID-19 onset was associated with higher family-to-work conflict, work-to-family guilt, and family-to-work guilt; among nonparents the pandemic was associated with lower work-to-family conflict and work-to-family guilt. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 onset had contrasting effects on the lives of employed parents and nonparents.

The Early 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak in China and Subsequent Flourishing: Medium-Term Effects and Intervening Mechanisms

“…If left unaddressed, the regional gap in flourishing may translate into more severe consequences for population health and health inequalities in the long run (Louie et al 2021). Moving beyond existing studies that focused largely on the immediate pandemic impacts (e.g., Bierman and Schieman 2020;Fan et al 2021;Montazer et al 2022;Ran et al 2020;World Health Organization 2022), our study advances a life course understanding by illustrating how the COVID-19 outbreak-a macro-level disruptive event-shapes micro-level lived experiences and individual well-being years following the outbreak. Our study also extends a small body of literature on the longer term mental health impacts of previous infectious disease outbreaks that occurred in China, which tended to focus on survivors of the diseases (Mak et al 2009) or health care professionals (McAlonan et al 2007).…”

How Work-Family Guilt, Involvement with Children and Spouse’s Support Influence Parents’ Life Satisfaction in a Context of Work-Family Conflict

“…Parental guilt may generate from parents’ perceptions that they are not the parent they wish to be or believe they should be, a domain-specific self-discrepancy that has been recently shown to be related to parental burnout (Roskam et al, 2021 ). The high standards of parenthood, and especially the high standards of the ideal mother (Elanda, 2021 ), added to the recent pressure imposed on parents by the COVID-19 pandemic have increased the WFG experienced by working parents (e.g., Montazer et al, 2022 ; Walters et al, 2021 ). The impact of WFG found in the present study could be further explained by the so-called loss spiral of resources.…”

“…Recent research suggests that mothers, and especially mothers of young children, are more likely to experience guilt regarding the negative impact of work on family than fathers (Aarntzen et al, 2021 ; Borelli et al, 2017 ). Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased levels of WIF and WFG in working parents (Miller and Riley, 2022 ; Montazer et al, 2022 ). For working parents, the COVID-19 pandemic has blurred the line between the roles of parent and worker which has amplified WIF and WFG (Aplin-Houtz et al, 2021 ).…”

Managing a Household During a Pandemic: Cognitive Labor and Parents’ Psychological Well-being

“…By Fall 2020, one-quarter of adults were clinically depressed and 35 percent suffered from severe anxiety (Thomeer 2023). The effects of the pandemic on psychological well-being have also been uneven; racial/ethnic minorities experienced the largest declines in mental health (Thomeer, Moody, and Yahirun 2023), and parents—mothers in particular—also experienced large declines in mental health (Montazer et al 2022; Zamarro and Prados 2021).…”

“…One primary factor that has contributed to declines in parents’ psychological well-being during the pandemic is dramatic increases in domestic workloads (Calarco et al 2020; Lyttelton, Zang, and Musick 2022; Montazer et al 2022; Zamarro and Prados 2021). Research on increased domestic labor, and how mothers disproportionately shouldered this labor, is widespread (for review see Yavorsky, Qian, and Sargent 2021), as is prepandemic research on the gendered division of domestic labor and parents’ psychological well-being (Bird 1999; Fillo et al 2015; Glass and Fujimoto 1994; Ross, Mirowsky, and Huber 1983; Shockley and Allen 2018).…”