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Investigating the significance of single and married mothers’ child care arrangements on work/family role balance

University of British Columbia

The relationship between a mother’s child care arrangements and her work/family role balance has been investigated. Differences between married and single mothers’ child care arrangements and their work/family role balance has also been investigated. Seven hypotheses that phrase these relationships empirically have been postulated. From the Statistics Canada General Social Survey Cycle 5 version (1990) a sub-sample of 504 mothers with children under the age of 5 years was selected. Multiple regression, chi square and ANCOVA procedures were applied. The results indicated that 2 of the 7 hypotheses were significantly supported. In particular, the significant findings suggest that family care, day care and relative care vary negatively on satisfaction and positively on number of hours the respondent works per week (two of the four dependent measures that represented the work/family role balance concept). Also, the results suggested that married mothers suffer from less work/family role imbalance than single mothers. In addition, single and married mothers differed in their use of day care and relative care. The findings were explained by current work/family literature. Work/family role balance was partially explained by the methodological representation. Rather, this theory was used as a guide to further the search for a theoretical framework that incorporates both enhancement and conflict. In addition, an implication for future research is to locate additional variables that exhaustively explain this concept so that work/family role balance may become a theory that can stand up to the most vigorous empirical testing.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-02-20

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4863

Sociology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace