A Comparative Study of the Parenting Stress and Job Satisfaction of Working Mothers Related to Child-Care Arrangements

The main purpose of this study was to compare the parenting stress and job satisfaction of working mothers related to two child-care arrangements. This study compared two independent groups; one group using a day-care center at work and the other group using child-care at home. The subjects of this study included eighty four working mothers from Y university medical center in Seoul who had a child between the age 6 months to 6 years. Fifty one of them used the day-care center at work, and thirty three had child-care at home. The instruments employed for this study were the Parenting Stress Index, developed by Abidin and revised by Min(1990), and the Job Satisfaction Measurement Scale, developed by Chang(1984) and revised for this study by the researchers. The data were collected from April 7, 1997 to May I, 1997 through a self-reporting questionnaire. The data were analyzed by using SPSS-Win program. The results were as follows: 1. Parenting stress was not significantly different between the working mothers using a day-care center at work and the working mothers using child-care at home(t=-.542, p>.05). However, in the parental domain, parenting stress of working mothers using a day-care center at work was significantly lower than that of working mothers using child-care at home(t=-3.126, p<.05). 2. Job satisfaction was not significantly different between the working mothers using a day-care center at work and the working mothers using child-care at home(t=1.084, p>.05). In conclusion, the findings of this study indicate that using a day-care center at work is not significantly related to parenting stress or job satisfaction of working mothers using child-care at home. Therefore, a safe and well managed day-care system at work can be a sound alternative for working mothers with young children.ope