Parental sensitivity to infants and toddlers in dual-earner and single-earner families

Concerns have been raised about the effects of maternal employment on parent-child relations. Some researchers have concluded that maternal employment status has no effect on children's maternal attachments; others have found that full-time employment initiated in the first year of life is associated with insecure patterns of attachment behavior. The evidence suggests that dual-earner parents who have young children have increased psychological distress, affecting marital quality and spousal and parenting behaviors.

To learn whether parental sensitivity and the determinants of parental sensitivity differ for first-time parents in single-earner and dual-earner families when their first-born children are 3 months of age and when they are 2 1/2 years old; and to learn the extent to which changes in parental sensitivity and the determinants of parental sensitivity differ for single-earner and dual-earner parents during the study interval.

This panel study compared marital quality, psychological well-being, and parental sensitivity of single-earner and dual-earner parents when their first-born children were 3 months of age and again when they were 2 1/2 years of age.

Employed mothers were more sensitive to their 3-month olds than were nonemployed mothers. When children were 2 1/2 years of age, dual-earner parents had lower marital quality than single-earner parents. Marital quality was positively associated with parental sensitivity at both study phases. Regardless of maternal employment status, parents' marital quality declined during the study interval.

Regardless of mothers' employment status, well-educated, middle-class parents tend to provide sensitive parenting. Marital quality and psychological well-being are important supports of sensitive parenting for dual-earner and single-earner families.