Working Parents’ Struggling to Achieve the Work-Life Balance During the Pandemic: Exploring the Benefits of Relational Maintenance Beyond Relational Outcomes

ABSTRACT Work from home mandates during the current pandemic forced people to merge personal and professional lives, thus the current study explored how relational support from a romantic partner might have helped working parents maintain satisfying work-life balance. Guided by theory of resilience and relational load, the study proposed that individuals’ perceiving greater relational maintenance from partners would report higher satisfaction balancing work-life, further associate with greater relationship and job satisfaction. 271 working parents responded to an online survey in August 2020, when work from home mandates were still in place. Results revealed that for working parents, satisfaction from work-life balance mediated the associations between receiving relational maintenance strategies and relationship/job satisfaction. The study also exposed sex differences, indicating that women carried greater burdens during the pandemic. Findings illuminate the need to cultivate supportive personal relationships and institute policies to mitigate gender inequities.