Structural Relationships among Gains and Strains of Mothers’ Work-Family Balance, Parenting Stress, Chidren’s Psychological Characteristics, School Adjustment

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this study was to identify the structural relationship among the gains and strains of mothers’ work-parenting balance with children in the sixth grade of elementary school and to explore how its rela-tionship changes through the influences of parenting stress, elementary school students' self-esteem, and grit on school adjustment. Methods A total of 769 pairs of mother-child data in the 13th wave of the Panel Study of Korea Children were ana-lyzed by using structural equation modeling. The measurement model verification was followed by the structural model verification, and the maximum likelihood method (ML) was used. Results The results of this study are as follows. First, the strains between mothers' work-family balance had a positive effect on parental life stress and parental role stress, and the gains of mothers' work-family balance had a negative effect on parental role stress. Also, parental role stress has a negative effect on children's self-esteem and grit, mother’s life stress did not shown any relationship with self-esteem, grit, and school adjustment. In ad-dition, it was confirmed that childrens’ self-esteem had a positive effect on grit and school adjustment, and grit had a positive effect on school adjustment. Second, the strains in work-family balance has a negative effect on school adjustment through the multiple mediators of parental role stress, self-esteem, and grit, and the gains of work-family balance has a positive effect on school adjustment through the multiple mediators of parent role stress, self-esteem, and grit. Conclusions This study suggests that the gains and strains of work-family balance affect the self-esteem, grit, and school adjustment of children through the mothers’ parental role stress. It implies that its important to reduce the parental role stress in order to help psychological stability and school adjustment of children.