Work-life balance and life satisfaction as predictors of parental stress in dual career families

The aim of this study is to examine work-life balance and life satisfaction as determinants of parental stress in dual-career families. The study group consists of 382 participants (236women and 146men) who have at least one child and an average age of 40 (SD=6.64) and belong to dual-career families. In the study, the Parent Stress Scale, the New Work-Life Balance Scale, the Life Satisfaction Scale, and a personal information form created by the researcher were used to determine the demographic characteristics of the participants. The following statistical methods were used in the analysis of the data: Independent Samples t-Test, Levene Homogeneity Test, One-Way ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and Hierarchical Regression Analysis. According to the research findings, female participants experienced significantly higher parental stress than male participants. Additionally, a weak but significant negative relationship was found between age and parental stress; it was observed that parental stress decreased with age. In the three-stage hierarchical regression analysis, the first model included only the work-life balance variable and explained 19% of the variance in parental stress. When the gender variable was added to the second model, the explanatory power increased to 23%, and when the life satisfaction variable was added to the third model, the explained variance reached 28%. These findings reveal that parental stress is significantly related not only to individual characteristics but also to many factors such as work life, gender roles, and overall life satisfaction. The research findings were discussed within the framework of the literature, and recommendations that could contribute to the field were developed.