Personal and environmental factors contributing to parenting stress among employed and nonemployed women

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, significantly more women have returned to the workforce after the birth of their child. Despite gains made by the second women's movement and attendant socio‐political changes, women continue to bear the major parenting responsibilities in addition to household chores. Does this additional role of workforce member result in a more highly stressed mother? This study recruited 120 mothers of infants and toddlers from a range of occupations who provided information on their adjustment to parenting as well as individual difference factors such as maternal self‐confidence, somatic complaints, and Type A behaviour. The results suggest that the level of parenting stress is not related to employment status alone. However, the factors contributing to reported parenting stress do vary by employment status. These results highlight the need to examine the interaction of personal and environmental dimensions when studying this complex area.

The mediating effects of stress on the relationship between mindfulness and parental responsiveness.

“…Analyses were also run to determine whether or not there was a moderated mediation effect using participant employment status as a dichotomous moderator to determine consistency with previous findings reported in the literature. Similar to previous research indicating that employment status in and of itself is not a significant predictor of parenting stress (Forgays & Forgays, 1993; Warfield, 2001), results of a moderated mediation analysis of the current sample using a MODMED test following the Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007) approach indicated that participants’ employment status ( employed or not employed ) did not significantly moderate the effects of mindfulness on parenting stress or of parenting stress on parental responsiveness…”

“…Parenting stress can occur in any circumstance but, based on this model, is more likely when resources are lacking. That being said, parental employment status has been shown to not be a singular predictor of parenting stress (Forgays & Forgays, 1993; Warfield, 2001). Overwhelming research on mindfulness has established its relation to decreased stress levels (Kabat-Zinn, 2003).…”

Racial and Ethnic Variation in the Predictors of Maternal Parenting Stress

“…Muslow and colleagues (2002) found that partner support lowered stress for mothers with young children. Similarly, the effects of employment on parenting stress are moderated by individual and contextual factors, such as depression and financial strain (Forgays & Forgays, 1993; Gyamfi, Brooks-Gunn, & Jackson, 2001). …”