Parental employment and child behaviors: Do parenting practices underlie these relationships?

This study examined whether hours of parental employment were associated with child behaviors via parenting practices. The sample included 2,271 Australian children aged 4–5 years at baseline. Two-wave panel mediation models tested whether parenting practices that were warm, hostile, or characterized by inductive reasoning linked parent’s hours of paid employment with their child’s behavior at age 6–7 years. There were significant indirect effects linking mother employment to child behavior. No paid employment and full-time work hours were associated with more behavioral problems in children through less-warm parenting practices; few hours or long hours were associated with improved behavioral outcomes through less-hostile parenting practices. These findings may have implications for developing policies to enable parents to balance work and family demands.
Source: International Journal of Behavioral Development - Category: Child Development Authors: Tags: Articles Source Type: research