Gender and the Relationship between Parent Role Quality and Psychological Distress

Abstract

The association between parent role quality and psychological distress is examined in a sample of 180 full-time employed dual-earner couples, controlling for such individual-level variables as age, education, occupational prestige, and marital quality and for such couple-level variables as length of marriage, household income, and number, ages, and sex of children. The magnitude of this effect is compared for men and for women. Results indicate that parent role quality is significantly negatively associated with psychological distress for men as well as for women and that the magnitude of the effect depends little, if at all, on gender, casting doubt on the widely held view that parenting experiences more significantly influence women's mental health states than men's. The results are discussed in the context of the converging roles played by men and women in dual-earner couples.