Social Capital and Parental Stress of Married Mothers with Young Children: Variations by Employment Status

Abstract

This study attempted to examine whether there is a relationship between parental stress and the accessible and mobilizable social capital of mothers raising young children by the mothers` employment status. The sample included 284 employed and 287 non-employed mothers who have children younger than the age of 5. Three research questions were as follows: 1) do the accessible and mobilizable social capital of mothers and parental stress differ by the mothers` employment status? 2) are the accessible and mobilizable social capital of employed mothers related to the level of parental stress? And finally, 3) are the accessible and mobilizable social capital of unemployed mothers related to the level of parental stress? The results showed that no significant difference was found in accessing social capital by the employment status of mothers. However, employed mothers were capable of mobilizing more social capital for childcare assistance than non-employed mothers. The parental stress of employed mothers was significantly lower than that of non-employed mothers. For employed mothers, their mobilizable social capital contributed to the reduction of parental stress. For non-employed mothers, their capability of accessing social capital significantly predicted lower levels of parental stress. These results indicate that the concept of social capital could be taken into consideration when explaining the parental stress of married mothers raising young children.