From an individual to a dyadic perspective on work and family : parents' decisions and experiences after childbirth

This doctoral thesis investigates parents’ work- and family-related decisions and experiences after childbirth. Most importantly, this investigation is done from both an individual and a dyadic perspective. Three articles are included in this thesis that aim to expand knowledge and theory on the interplay of work and family in parents’ lives, and on mutual influences between parents. In the first article, the impact of gender-role attitudes on dual-earner couples’ parental work decisions is examined. It is assumed that both parents’ length of parental leave and changes in working hours after childbirth are associated with individual as well as the partners’ gender-role attitudes. Dyadic data from two longitudinal studies (Study 1: N = 138 heterosexual couples; Study 2: N = 168 heterosexual couples) are analyzed by using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) that accounts for interdependencies between couples. The findings indicate that fathers’ individual attitudes predict their changes in working hours after childbirth relative to hours worked before. Fathers with more egalitarian attitudes decrease their working hours to a larger extent. Regarding interdependencies between both parents’ attitudes and each partner’s work decisions, results show that fathers’ attitudes predict their wives’ work decisions: Women with more egalitarian partners take shorter parental leaves and decrease their working hours from before childbirth to re-entry into labor market less. In contrast, mothers’ attitudes do not influence their partners’ work decisions. Furthermore, in the second article, the focus is on fathers who decided to take parental leave after childbirth. The study presented in this article examines the impact of family-supportive organizational perceptions and length of parental leave on fathers’ daily work-related worries by using data from a diary study with N = 108 fathers actually on leave. It is assumed that the more leave-taking fathers perceive their organization as family-supportive, the fewer worries they have during parental leave. With regard to length of leave, it is assumed that fathers who are taking longer leaves worry more about work-related consequences while being on leave than fathers taking shorter leaves. Multilevel analyses confirmed that fathers who perceive their organization as family-supportive worry less about work-related consequences than fathers who perceive their organization as unsupportive. Unexpectedly, with regard to length of leave, the results indicate that fathers who take relatively short leaves worry more intensely about the impact of their leave on their working life than fathers who take longer leaves. Finally, in the third article, the impact of parents’ feelings of bliss and fulfillment aroused by their child is investigated. It is assumed that both parents’ satisfaction with the couple relationship is associated with individual as well as the partners’ feelings of bliss. Longitudinal dyadic data from N = 135 heterosexual couples are analyzed using again the APIM. As expected, fathers’ child-related bliss 6 months postpartum positively influences their partnership satisfaction up to 24 months postpartum. Mothers’ child-related bliss, on the contrary, is not associated with their individual partnership satisfaction. With respect to interdependencies between couples, fathers’ child-related bliss positively contributes to mothers’ partnership satisfaction from 6 up to 24 months after childbirth. In contrast, mothers’ child-related bliss does not influence fathers’ satisfaction with the couple relationship. Taken together, this thesis highlights the importance of conceptualizing parents as a tightly entwined social system that is characterized by a high degree of interdependency. This, consequently, requires the need to take both partners into account to understand parents’ work- and family-related decisions and experiences during the early family phase. Dependencies have not only to be considered from a theoretical but also from a methodological point of view. Moreover, this research emphasizes the importance of paying attention to challenges that fathers are facing at the interface between work and family