Father involvement and marital relationship during transition to parenthood: Differences between dual and single-earner families

Short title: Transition to parenthood: Father involvement and marital relationship Full title: Father involvement and marital relationship during transition to parenthood: Differences between dual- and single-earner families. Authors: SUSANA MENÉNDEZ* Mª VICTORIA HIDALGO** LUCÍA JIMÉNEZ** Mª CARMEN MORENO** Affiliation: *University of Huelva, Spain. **University of Seville, Spain. Date of postage: December 17th, 2009. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Susana Menéndez Álvarez-Dardet ([email protected]). Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación. Universidad de Huelva. Campus del Carmen, Avda. Tres de Marzo s/n, 21001 Huelva, Spain. Short title: Transition to parenthood: Father involvement and marital relationship Full title: Father involvement and marital relationship during transition to parenthood: Differences between dual- and single-earner families. Date of postage: December 17th, 2009. Abstract Research into the process of becoming mother or father shows very conclusively that this important life transition is accompanied by both a decrease in marital quality and a more traditional division of labour. In this paper these changes are analyzed with special emphasis on the relationships between them and exploring the role played in this process by the mother’s work status. Results showed a significant link between the development of marital quality and violated expectations regarding father involvement on childrearing. Dual-earner families were characterized by a specific pattern of changes, with greater stability than single-earner families in marital and parental roles during transition to parenthood and a significant role played by spouse support as a partner, but not as a parent. Key words: Father involvement, marital quality, transition to parenthood, mother’s work status. Resumen: La investigación sobre el proceso de convertirse en madre o en padre muestra, de manera muy concluyente, que esta importante transición evolutiva suele estar caracterizada por un decremento en la calidad de la relación de pareja y por una tradicionalización en la división de las tareas dentro del hogar. En este artículo se analizan ambos tipos de cambios prestando especial atención a la relación entre los mismos, y se explora el papel que juega en ellos el hecho de que la mujer trabaje o no fuera del hogar. Los resultados indican que existe una importante relación entre el desarrollo de la relación de pareja y la violación de expectativas respecto a la implicación del padre en la crianza y el cuidado del bebé. Las parejas en las que ambos miembros trabajan fuera del hogar tienden a estar caracterizadas por una mayor estabilidad en los roles como pareja y como progenitores durante la transición, y por el significativo papel que en este proceso juega el apoyo del cónyuge como pareja y no como progenitor. Palabras clave: Implicación paterna, calidad de la relación de pareja, transición a la paternidad y la maternidad, estatus laboral de la madre. Acknowledgements: The research described in this article was conducted as part of the programme Cooperation in Maternal-Infant Education Activities, run by the Public Sanitary Service of Andalucía (Spain) and the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology (University of Seville, Spain) under the direction of the Professor Jesús Palacios. In Spain, as well as in other European countries, the growing presence of women in the labor force has constituted a salient characteristic of recent changes in our social organization. The percentage of worker women has dramatically increased from 29.79% in 1989 to 51.57% in 2009 (National Statistic Institute, 2010). According to sociological analyses (i.e., Alberdi, 1995; Iglesias de Ussel, 1998) this relevant change has provoked a complex process of re-definition and re-negotiation of male and female roles, as well as a growing equality in roles performed by both men and women in different domains, particularly in family context. As a consequence, social sciences have shown a growing interest in examining possible changes in the male role as fathers, particularly paternal participation in childrearing. The extent and type of father involvement in the care for his children is broadly conceptualized as a complex and multidimensional construct, with both cognitive/attitudinal and behavioral components (Engle & Leonard, 1995; Parke, 2002; Pleck, 1997). Therefore, scholarships have examined attitudinal facets of paternal role as central constructs for understanding father involvement, like general ideology about paternal and maternal roles in the family, with special reference to the level of traditionalism of gender ideology and role attitudes, as well as the father’s investment in his paternal identity (Bulanda, 2004; Gaunt, 2005, 2006; McBride, Brown, Bost, Shin, Vaughn & Korth, 2005; Paterna & Martínez, 2006, 2009; Rane & McBride, 2000). In addition to the approach described above, researchers have been interested in the extent and type of father involvement in specific childrearing tasks. From this perspective, and according to Lamb (Lamb, Pleck, Charnov & Levine, 1987), father involvement has been conceptualized as the level of men participation in child daily live in three different ways: The amount of time and the type of tasks which fathers are usually involved in (a) interacting directly with the child, (b) being physically or emotionally available or accessible to the child, and (c) assuming responsibility for the child’s care and welfare. Lamb’s three-part model has been broadly empirically examined and continues to be an important guide for research on father involvement in childrearing. Nevertheless, the majority of the studies have been centered on the amount and type of childrearing tasks that fathers perform in the daily life of their children, that is, the interaction level described in Lamb’s three-part model. The present study is an attempt to examine father involvement (particularly father’s direct participation in childrearing tasks) during the transition to parenthood, one of the major life transitions of the adult age. Despite the important changes Spanish families have undergone during the past decades in relation to birth rates (i.e., a decrease of birth age -average number of children per women has fallen from 2.8 in 1975 to 1.4 in 2009- or a delay in the timing of motherhood -average age at maternity was 28.8 in 1975 and 30.87 in 2009-; National Statistics Institute, 2010), becoming a parent remains a common experience to most women and men in Spain, and continues to be a normative life transition during adulthood. Developmental research into the processes of continuity and change that take place during the transition to parenthood offers conclusive evidence that becoming a mother or a father is a critical time for the marital relationship, and one of the most difficult transitions for couples. So, childbirth tends to be accompanied by an increase in conflict between parents, combined with a strong reduction in joint time and activities as partners and an overall lower satisfaction with the marital relationship (Belsky & Rovine, 1990; Cowan & Cowan, 2000; Feldman, 2000; Lawrence, Nylen, & Cobb, 2007; Levy-Shiff, 1994). However, these results must be examined more precisely. First, the negative changes experienced are, on average, statistically significant but with a moderate clinical relevance. Second, when analyses extend beyond the central tendencies in the data, a marked variability between families emerges (Belsky & Rovine, 1990; Cowan & Cowan, 2000; Lawrence et al., 2007). Finally, studies also show a high level of continuity within each couple. Thus, partners with a satisfactory relation before their baby’s birth are likely to continue enjoying a positive marital relationship after becoming parents, despite any slight and temporary deterioration. Similarly, for couples with problems or under a certain amount of pressure, becoming parents tends to aggravate any already existing problems (Cowan & Cowan, 2000). Studies have also very conclusively shown a strong tendency for sex-typing in the division of labour, with a significant increase in women’s commitment to domestic tasks after the transition (Belsky, Lang, & Huston, 1986; Cowan & Cowan, 2000; Goldberg & Perry-Jenkins, 2004). Regarding childrearing, the studies that have explored prenatal expectations and father’s actual involvement after baby’s birth have found that the expectations are very optimistic and inconsistent with father’s participation in subsequent months (Belsky et al., 1986; Cowan & Cowan, 2000; Goldberg & Perry-Jenkins, 2004). This discrepancy was described by Belsky (1985) as violated expectations, referring to the experience of parents who face a reality quite different from the one they had anticipated. However, again studies have shown that levels of father involvement before and after the baby’s birth are closely related. Thus, significant changes occur towards more traditional sex roles but within important and significant intrafamily continuity. Summing up, the transition to parenthood is a critical time for marital and parental roles, with a series of changes that are negative in sign and moderate in magnitude, but at the same time these changes are characterized by significant continuity. Little is known about the relationship between these roles and, specifically, between the changes in marital and parental roles during the process of becoming parents. However, this life transition can only be fully understood if a systemic framework is adopted. The processes of change that men and women go through when becoming parents —on both individual and interpersonal levels— are interrelated and mutually influential (Belsky & Rovine, 1990; Cowan & Cowan, 2000). Specifically, several studies have found marital satisfaction and father involvement to be interrelated issues during the transition to parenthood: greater prenatal marital satisfaction tend to be related to more father involvement in childrearing (Belsky & Rovine, 1990; Feldman, 2000; Lee & Doherty, 2007). The mutual influence of the roles as partners and parents is not only a matter of the strength of these issues but is also related to the patterns of change in these roles. There is empirical evidence that father involvement is a factor clearly linked to the decrease in marital satisfaction during the transition to parenthood. In the analysis carried out by Levy-Shiff (1994; Levy-Shiff & Israelashvili, 1988), the degree and extent of the decrease in marital satisfaction was mainly explained by the level of father’s participation in childrearing. Cowan and Cowan (2000) reported similar results, but here the negative effect of parenthood on the partners’ relationship was mainly mitigated by the degree of discrepancy between prenatal expectations and actual father involvement, that is, the violated expectations described by Belsky (1985). It seems that violated expectations of father involvement in childrearing are especially critical for the development of marital quality, so caring for the baby produces most of the new and pressing demands that partners face when becoming parents (Feldman, 2000; Goldberg & Perry-Jenkins, 2004; Levy-Shiff, 1994). Little is known about the role played by undergoing the transition to parenthood in a single or a dual-earner family. In research about father involvement, whether or not Nevertheless, correlation analyses revealed significant relations in all the topics between T1 and T2. INSERT TABLE 1 HERE To explore the role that mother’s work status plays in these relations, we performed additional analyses. First, two multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were performed at T1 and T2 separately including mother’s work status as independent variable and marital quality, father involvement, partner support for parenthood, and partner support for general matters as dependent variables. These analyses showed significant differences between parents from single- and dual-earner families at T1, F (4, 138) = 3.45, p < .01, and T2, F (4, 138) = 2.83, p < .05. Subsequent univariate ANOVAs indicated that these differences were explained particularly by father involvement, F (1, 141) = 5.04, p < .05 at T1 and F (1, 141) = 10.37, p < .01 at T2, and partner support for parenthood, F (1, 141) = 3.73, p < .05 at T1. Second, the main effect of mother’s work status was included in the multivariate repeated measured analysis presented at the beginning of this section, showing that the model was nearly significant for the set of the topics assessed, F (4, 138) = 2.18, p = .07. Third, following Riley’s (1990) suggestion, we performed two separate multivariate repeated measured analyses for single- and dual-earner families in order to explore differences between T1 and T2 in the direct scores. The results obtained (see Table 2) showed significant differences for parents from single-earner families, F (4, 96) = 7.83, p < .001, particularly for marital quality, F (1, 99) = 21.65, p < .001, father involvement, F (1, 99) = 15.81, p < .001, and partner support for general matters, F (1, 99) = 5.03, p < .05. INSERT TABLE 2 HERE Bivariate correlation analyses of change scores were run to explore covariation between the development of marital quality and changes in other issues. The results showed significant and positive correlations between the change in marital quality and the change in the other three scores: partner support for parenthood, r (187) = .237, p < .001, partner support for general matters, r (187) = .51, p < .001, and violated expectations of father involvement, r (143) = .152, p < .05. Two separate linear regression analyses for dual- and single-earner families were computed in order to assess the relative strength of these variables in predicting change in marital quality across the transition to parenthood in each type of family (see Table 3). Results obtained for single-earner families showed partner support for general matters as the only variable that was significantly related (β = .647, p < .001) with the change in marital quality. In dual-earner families, both partner support for general matters (β = .536, p < .001 and violated expectations about father involvement (β = .183, p < .05) predicted change in marital quality. INSERT TABLE 3 HERE DISCUSSION The main goal of the present study was to examine father involvement during the transition to parenthood. As previous studies had pointed out, the obtained results shed light about father involvement in childrearing as a complex and multidimensional construct (Parke, 2002; Pleck, 1997). Descriptive analyses performed allow us to draw conclusions quite similar to those expressed in the literature (Belsky & Rovine, 1990; Cowan & Cowan, 2000; Lawrence et al., 2007; Levy-Shiff, 1994). The average tendencies indicate that becoming a parent is a process that promotes some negative changes in marital quality, and that organization of childrearing is quite different from prenatal expectations. However, correlation analyses showed that these mainly negative changes occur, on average, within significant intrafamily continuity. Nevertheless, the results presented here also identified one exception to this more general interpretation: in this pattern of negative changes, there were no relevant changes related to partner support for parenthood. Combining this result with the significant decrease in support by the spouse as partner seems to indicate that, during the transition, many parents may experience changes in opposite directions. Therefore, the adaptation to parenthood implies, to a great extent, more commitment to the relationship as parents and less to the relationship as partners. One of the possible implications of these opposing patterns is the observed significant decrease in the perceived marital quality. The results of the developmental analytical strategy seem to us to be especially interesting. With these analyses, we tried to avoid limiting the strength of the different issues assessed before and after baby’s birth, and to focus on the strength of the changes that occur during the transition, that is, on the level of continuity/discontinuity experienced during the process of becoming parents. Therefore, these change scores allow us to produce indexes that provide information of a highly developmental nature. The results of this type of analysis confirm, as do other studies (Cowan & Cowan, 2000; Levy-Shiff, 1994; Levy-Shiff & Israelashvili, 1988), the interaction between the development of marital quality and father involvement during the transition to parenthood. Parents whose prenatal expectations of father involvement were closer to the father’s actual participation experienced less deterioration and greater continuity in marital satisfaction during the transition. As Belsky (1985) suggested, within the process of changes and adjustments that occurs during the transition to parenthood, the violation of expectations previously held about these changes probably does not promote satisfactory evolution of the process. Violated expectations seem to have particularly negative consequences when they involve childrearing, where the discrepancy between expectation and reality means that the mother is involved in these tasks more than expected, resulting in a more critical view of her partner and a decrease in marital quality (Feldman, 2000; Levy-Shiff, 1994). However, this argument does not explain the decrease in marital satisfaction experienced by father (FOOTNOTE 1) . As Levy- Shiff (1994) remarks, a decrease in the father’s satisfaction may have two complementary explanations. On the one hand, a greater amount of time spent caring for her baby may be linked to a reduction in a mother’s involvement in her marital relationship, and these changes may affect the father negatively. On the other hand, in those cases where men hoped and wished to undertake a more active role as fathers, the greater involvement of the mother may be linked to the father feeling like an outsider. Both possible situations could contribute to the common paternal experience of a decrease in the perceived marital quality, although for different reasons from those experienced by mothers. In short, it seems to indicate that there are two patterns of change, which are the consequences of different processes. As Cowan and Cowan (2000) pointed out, the transition to parenthood is accompanied by adjustments and changes that, to a certain extent, tend to define the transition to motherhood and the transition to fatherhood. Nevertheless, we think that in future research we should conduct specific analyses in order to explore the process of becoming a parent separately for women and men. Despite these gender differences, our data analyses suggests that patterns of continuity tend to happen together: more stable partner relations occurred among parents whose expectations were closer to reality. These results highlight the importance of stability in times of transition. Developmental transitions are potentially stressful mainly because many changes occur in a variety of areas during these periods of people’s lives. If these changes take place with a backdrop of overall stability, the adult and/or the couple are more likely to manage the transition satisfactorily. The present study confirms that mother’s work status plays an important role in father involvement in childrearing. Feldman (2000) discussed the need for more studies to clarify the weight that this index has in explaining the variability observed in the process of becoming parents. Therefore, and following Riley’s recommendations (1990), we performed separate analyses for dual- and single-earner families, finding that the transitions experienced by both types of families are fairly similar. However, the results concerning the changes in marital quality, father involvement, partner support for parenthood and partner support for general matters did not show significant differences for dual-earner families. These results indicate, as we hypothesized, that the transition experienced by dual-earner families is a more continuous and slightly more positive process. Our regression analyses indicated that, on the one hand, in single- and in dualearner families, stability in marital quality was especially and strongly associated with stability in support provided by the spouse, but as partner, not as co-parent. This result emphasizes the critical role of stability in the partner’s support for general issues in mitigating any decrease in perceived marital quality: couples with positive profiles tend to be those that do not become parents to the detriment of their role as partners. Therefore, the transition to parenthood seems to be a process characterized by strong changes in marital and parental roles which are better managed from a background of continuity. On the other hand, regression analysis performed for dual-earner families confirmed the important role played by partner support in this type of microsystem, but they showed that changes in marital quality were also significantly predicted by violated expectations about father involvement. As we mentioned in the introduction, different authors (Barnett & Baruch, 1988; Crouter & Manke, 1997; Gottfried & Gottfried, 2006; Lee & Doherty, 2007; Riley, 1990) have suggested that, compared with mothers from single-earner families, the lower level of time available for mothers from dual-earner families to dedicate to childrearing is related to a lower level of volition in terms of father involvement. So, in families where the woman is in the labor force, the father’s participation in traditionally female tasks is more necessary and more stable than in single-earner homes. Therefore in these families, with lower levels of willfulness in father involvement, the stability of the partner and parent relationships and their mutual influences seem to be particularly critical during the transition to parenthood. In short, the results presented here show that the roles as partner and parent, two of the most important facets of adult identity, are closely related since the time one becomes a parent, and their development during this important transition will depend, above all, on the ecological characteristics that define each family system. Anyhow, we think that the present study has two main limitations. On the one hand, there are other topics that should contribute to improving our understanding of this relevant developmental transition which have not been commented on in this paper, particularly gender, experience as parent and characteristics of mothers’ labour conditions; these analyses are central research questions for our next planned publications. On the other hand, we collected data using individual interviews and running individual data analyses, but the results and conclusions should be improved with data coming from the couple as the unit of analysis. In conclusion, we believe that the present study is consistent and supports the ecological and systemic view of the family that has been gaining ground in research on the transition to parenthood. The results reported here allow us to conclude that the different processes of change that occur during this life transition do not follow separate paths but stem from the combined influence of different factors that play crucial roles in the process. REFERENCES Alberdi, I. (1995). Informe sobre la situación de la familia en España. Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Sociales. Barnett, R. C., & Baruch, G. K. (1987). Determinants of fathers’ participation in family work. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, 29-40. Barnett, R. C., & Baruch, G. K. (1988). Correlates of fathers’ participation in family work. In P. Bronstein and C. P. Cowan (Eds.), Fatherhood today: Men’s changing role in the family (pp. 66-78). NY: Wiley. Belsky, J. (1985). Exploring individual differences in marital change across the transition to parenthood: the role of violated expectation. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 47, 1037-1052. Belsky, J., & Rovine, M. (1990). Patterns of marital change across the transition to parenthood: pregnancy to three years postpartum. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 5-19. Belsky, J., Lang, M. E., & Huston, T. L. (1986). Sex typing and division of labour as determinants of marital change across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 1-6. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bulanda, R. E. (2004). Paternal involvement with children: The influence of gender ideologies. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 66, 40-45. Cowan, C. P., & Cowan, P. A. (2000). When partners become parents. The big life change for couples. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Crouter, A. C., & Manke, B. A. (1997). Development a typology of dual-earner families: a window into differences between and within families in relationships, roles and activities. Journal of Family Psychology, 11(1), 62-75. Deutsch, F. M., Lussier, J. B., & Servis, L. J. (1993). Husbands at home: Predictors of paternal participation in childcare and housework. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(6), 1154-1166. Engle, P. L., & Leonard, A. (1995). Fathers as parenting partners. In J. Bruce, C. B. Lloyd and A. Leonard (Eds.), Families in focus: New perspectives on mothers, fathers and children (pp. 49-70). New York: The Population Council. Feldman, R. (2000). Parents’ convergence on sharing and marital satisfaction, father involvement, and parent-child relationship at the transition to parenthood. Infant Mental Health Journal, 21(3), 176-191. Gaunt, R. (2005). The role of value priorities in paternal and maternal involvement in child care. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(3), 643-655. Gaunt, R. (2006). Biological essentialism, gender ideologies, and role attitudes: What determines parents’ involvement in child care. Sex Roles, 55, 523-533. Goldberg, A. E., & Perry-Jenkins, M. (2004). Division of labour and working-class women’s well-being across the transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 18(1), 225-236. Gottfried, A. E., & Gottfried, A. W. (2006). A long-term investigation of the role of maternal and dual-earner employment in children’s development. American Behavioral Scientist, 49(10), 1310-1327. Hidalgo, M. V. (1994). The process of becoming mother and father. An ecological and developmental analysis. University of Seville: Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Iglesias de Ussel, J. (1998). La familia española en el contexto europeo. In M. J. Rodrigo and J. Palacios (Coords.), Familia y desarrollo humano (pp. 91-114). Madrid: Alianza. Lamb, M. E., Pleck, J. H., Charnov, E. L., & Levine, J. A. (1987). A biosocial perspective on parental behavior and involvement. In J. B. Lancaster, J. Altmann, A. S. Rossi and L. R. Sherrod (Eds.), Parenting across the life span: biosocial dimensions (pp. 11-42). Howthorne, NY: Aldine De Gruyter. Lawrence, E., Nylen, K., & Cobb, R. J. (2007). Prenatal expectations and marital satisfaction during transition to parenthood. Journal of Family Psychology, 21(2), 155-164. Lee, C., & Doherty, W. (2007). Marital satisfaction and father involvement during the transition to parenthood. Fathering, 5, 75-98. Levy-Shiff, R. (1994). Individual and contextual correlates of marital change during the transition to parenthood. Developmental Psychology, 30(4), 591-601. Levy-Shiff, R., & Israelashvili, R. (1988). Antecedents of fathering: some further exploration. Developmental Psychology, 24(3), 434-440. McBride, B. A., Brown, G. L., Bost, K., Shin, N., Vaughn B., & Korth, B. (2005), Paternal identity, maternal gathekeeping, and father involvement. Family Relations, 54, 360-372. McBride, B. A., & Mills, G. (1993). A comparison of mother and father involvement with their preschool age children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 8, 457-477. Minuchin, P. (2002). Looking toward the horizon: present and future in the study of family system. In J. P. McHale & W. S. Grolnick (Eds.), Retrospect and prospect in the psychological study of families (pp. 259-278). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. National Statistics Institute NSI. (2010). Basic demographic indicators. Retrieved from http://www.ine.es. Parke, R. D. (2002). Fathers and families. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.). Handbook of parenting, Vol. 3: Being and becoming a partner (pp. 27-73). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Paterna, C., & Martínez, M. C. (2006). Fathers and gender traditionalism: Perception of inequality and life roles. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 9(2), 171-181. Paterna, C., & Martínez, M. C. (2009). Influencia de las variables de género en la distribución de las tareas domésticas y de cuidado. Interamerican Journal of Psychology, 43(2), 240-248. Pleck, J. H. (1997). Paternal involvement: Levels, sources and consequences. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), The role of the father in child development (3rd ed, pp. 66-103). New York: Wiley. Rane, T. R., & McBride, B. A. (2000). Identity theory as a guide to understanding fathers’ involvement with their children. Journal of Family Issues, 21, 347-366. Riley, D. (1990). Network influences on father involvement in childrearing. In M. Cochran, M. Larner, D. Riley, L. Gunnarsson and Ch. Henderson (Eds.), Extending families. The social network of parents and their children. NY: Cambridge University Press. Spanish Women Institute SWI. (2007). Women in numbers. Retrieved from http://www.mtas.es/mujer.