Structural Relationships among Dual-Earner Parents’ Work-Family Conflict, Co-parenting Quality, Children’s Executive Function Difficulties, and School Adjustment: An Application of the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model

Abstract

The present study identified the effects of parents’ work-family conflict on their and partners’ co-parenting quality, as well as the mediating roles of co-parenting quality and children’s executive function difficulties in linking parents’ work-family conflict to their children’s school adjustment. This study used data from 387 dual-earner parents and their first-grade elementary school children, who participated in the Panel Study on Korean Children. An actor-partner interdependence and mediation model analysis using structural equation modeling revealed the following findings: first, the actor and partner effects of parents’ work-family conflict on co-parenting quality were significant for both fathers and mothers. Second, the effect of the fathers’ work-family conflict on their co-parenting quality was found to be greater than that of the mothers’ work-family conflict on the fathers’ co-parenting quality. Third, fathers’ and mothers’ work-family conflict, respectively, exerted an indirect effect on their children’s school adjustment through the serial mediation by the mothers’ co-parenting quality and children’s executive function difficulties, whereas the direct effects of fathers’ and mothers’ work-family conflict on children’s school adjustment were not supported. Finally, this study suggests that co-parenting quality and children’s executive function should be considered to facilitate children’s school adjustment in the parent education of dual-earner families with first-grade elementary school children, and that continuous policy efforts for dual-earner parents’ work-family balance are needed.