Maternal employment, morale and parenting style: Social class comparisons

Abstract

The relationships linking mothers' employment, emotional well-being, and parenting style were examined, with attention to social-class differences in a sample of 365 mothers of third- and fourth-grade children in an industrialized Midwestern city. In the working class, full-time homemakers obtained higher depressive mood scores than employed mothers, and depressive mood mediated their higher scores on permissive parenting and partially mediated their higher scores on authoritarian parenting. The employment/depression relationship was not moderated by marital status, fathers' help, number of children, or presence of a preschooler. It was mediated by locus of control but not by financial concerns or loneliness. In the middle class, employment was not related to mood, authoritative or permissive parenting, but homemakers indicated more authoritarian parenting orientations. The middle-class employment/depression relationship was moderated by number and age of children: fewer children and no preschooler were associated with higher depression for homemakers and lower depression for employed mothers. The effect of depressed mood on parenting orientations was moderated by education and parental commitment, but only in the middle class.