A Study on the Parenting Stress of Fathers

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 1998;36(9):49-62.

아버지의 양육스트레스에 관한 연구

김기현

우석대학교 아동복지학과

A Study on the Parenting Stress of Fathers

김기현

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the parenting stress of fathers who have preschooler. At first, a causal model constructed, including the parenting stress as a dependent variable and the psychological characteristics of paternal self-esteem and parenting efficacy as parameters. Based on the change of parenting stress, self-esteem and parenting efficacy according to various pertinent to fathers, the causal effect of various variables effecting on the paternal parenting stress is analyzed. The SPSS PC program was used for the statistical analysis, where fully exploited were frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, Cronbach α, one-way analysis(ANOVA), path analysis. The results can be summarized into 3 parts, in conclusion: 1) The younger a father is, the higher paternal self-esteem becomes. Paternal self-esteem trend was there, for a father who is a member of large family, and for a father whose education level is high, and for a father whose occupation is professional. Regarding parenting sense of competence, a father shows confidence when he has more income, more educated and less children. 2) The variable analysis effecting on the parenting stress dut to the paternal environment shows that a father feels more stress when his income is less and his spouse is working. The sub-factor analysis on the parenting stress shows that 'typical stress dut to the parenting' increases when his income is less and his spouse is working, and 'pressures pertaning to the parental role and distress' increases for a father with less income, working spouse, less educated and non-professional job. Further 'guilty to the parenting by others' shows higher for a father with less income and a working spouse. 3) The path analysis, which were performed to check the causality of the parenting stress dut to various variables, shows that the self-esteem and the parenting efficacy are significant factors directly effecting on the paternal parenting stress, and the job-satisfaction and marriage-satisfaction are significantly effecting on the parenting stress both directly and indirectly.