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Work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict and their relation to perceived parenting and the parent-child relationship before and during the first Covid-19 lockdown
[journal article]
Abstract Objective: Our objective is twofold: First, to examine whether, to what extent and for whom (by sex and educational attainment) work-to-family conflict (W→F-conflict) and family-to-work conflict (F→W-conflict) increased from the pre-Covid-19 period to the first lockdown period. Second, to examine wh... view more
Objective: Our objective is twofold: First, to examine whether, to what extent and for whom (by sex and educational attainment) work-to-family conflict (W→F-conflict) and family-to-work conflict (F→W-conflict) increased from the pre-Covid-19 period to the first lockdown period. Second, to examine whether and to what extent the negative associations between W→F-conflict/F→W-conflict and perceived parenting (positive encouragement, coercive parenting and the parent-child relationship) became stronger. Background: During the first Covid-19 lockdown, parents were asked to provide childcare and home-schooling for their children while also being expected to fulfil their work obligations. Under these circumstances, this study was set out to examine how W→F-conflict/F→W-conflict, perceived parenting and their associations were affected. Method: Multilevel regression models were applied to longitudinal data collected among 55 employed mothers and 76 employed fathers with a 3-year-old child at wave 1. Results: We found that F→W-conflict/W→F-conflict increased most strongly among highly educated mothers, followed by lower/medium educated mothers and highly educated fathers, while no increase or even a decrease was observed among lower/medium educated fathers. We found some associations between W→F-conflict/F→W-conflict with perceived parenting, but these did not consistently become stronger during the Covid-19 wave. Although overall heightened levels of conflict did not strongly spill over to mothers’ and fathers’ perceived parenting, our results showed that for some parents conflict clearly increased with negative implications for their perceived parenting. Conclusion: With some noteworthy exceptions, increases in F→W-conflict/W→F-conflict did not coincide with decreases in perceived parenting, indicating that most parents did not let increased conflict between work and family affect their parenting.... view less
Keywords
work-family balance; parenthood; parent-child relationship; conflict; gender-specific factors; level of education; inequality; Netherlands
Classification
Family Sociology, Sociology of Sexual Behavior
Free Keywords
Covid-19; work-family conflict; educational differences
Document language
English
Publication Year
2021
Page/Pages
p. 734-771
Journal
JFR - Journal of Family Research, 33 (2021) 3
ISSN
2699-2337
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed