The Role of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Perfectionistic Concerns and Emotional Dysregulation in the Co-Occurrence between Work-Family Conflict and Parental Burnout

Abstract

Work-family conflict and parental burnout are two important and often co-occurring indicators of psychological maladjustment related to the parenting role. Whereas both have been studied in largely different research areas, the present study forwards the assumption that their co-occurrence may be explained by shared dispositional factors such as parental perfectionism and emotional dysregulation (Malivoire et al., 2019). In particular, the present study adds to existing literature by (a) exploring the role of perfectionistic concerns in (the co-occurrence of) work-family conflict and parental burnout, (b) examining the role of emotional dysregulation as an intermediate variable in this link between perfectionism and parental maladjustment, and (c) addressing these research objectives for mothers (N = 116) and fathers (N = 102) separately, as well as their mutual influences using Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling (APIM). The research goals are examined in families of adolescents, thereby addressing parental experiences during one of the most challenging periods of parenthood. The results based on both maternal and paternal self-report showed that perfectionistic concerns were related to both work-family conflict and parental burnout, with emotional dysregulation playing a significant intermediate role. In addition to these actor effects, the APIM results showed a significant partner-effect between paternal perfectionistic concerns and maternal work-family conflict, as well as between maternal perfectionistic concerns and paternal burnout. From an applied perspective, these findings suggest that interventions towards parents who struggle with work-family balance should not only focus on a more realistic and compassionate attitude towards themselves, but should also target emotion regulation, and enhance insight in transactional processes between partners.