Abstract
This study examined mothers’ online community (OC) use and its structural relationship with parental stress, social support, and quality of life (QoL) under the social perspective of leisure and the theory of social support as a stress buffer. The population comprised employed mothers in two countries, Korea and Taiwan, which constitute appropriate settings for cross-cultural comparisons in the context of mothers’ OC use. The online questionnaire was distributed to 12 Korean mothers’ OCs and 14 Taiwanese mothers’ OCs, targeting employed mothers who have at least one child under seven-years-old and access mothers’ OCs on a regular basis. A total of 232 Korean and 303 Taiwanese responses were analyzed to examine the structural relationships among four key variables using structural equation modelling in AMOS 20. This study confirms that more parental stress leads to worse QoL. However, more parental stress results in less frequent participation in OCs, and OC use exerts a negative influence on QoL, which contradicts the hypothesized positive correlations. In comparison among Korean and Taiwanese mothers, Korean respondents showed a stronger influence of parental stress to mobilize more social support than did Taiwanese. This multidisciplinary study contributes to expanding the literature in noncommercial OCs, employed mothers in online leisure, and online social support in cross-cultural settings to promote the sustainability of families’ wellbeing.
Highlights
Women typically experience radical changes in their daily lives and intense stressors upon childbirth [1]
This study examined online community (OC) use and its structural relationship with parental stress, social support, and quality of life (QoL) among employed mothers using the conceptual research model based on the social perspective of leisure [18] and the theory of social support as a stress buffer [11]
The study confirms that more parental stress leads to worse QoL, which is consistent with previous findings [4,11]
Summary
Women typically experience radical changes in their daily lives and intense stressors upon childbirth [1] They often face a lack of social support and severe feelings of isolation under increased economic burdens and physical burnout [2,3]. Sleep disorders, high-risk behaviors, and even suicide could follow maternal stress, which exert substantial negative impacts on mothers’ quality of life (QoL) and children’s development [4,5]. Such hardship is often more pronounced among employed mothers who play multiple roles in family and career life. Employed mothers with young children often end up working over the weekend unlike men [10], which could strongly affect their leisure participation
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