Satisfaction with work–family roles and the relationship with working parents’ life satisfaction: a cross-disciplinary perspective

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we provide an innovative conceptualization of the work–family balance, and its implications for mothers’ and fathers’ life satisfaction, by drawing on ‘Self Determination Theory’ and ‘Job Demand-Control–Support’ model for the ‘basic psychological needs’ in partnership, parenting, and work. We analyse whether work and family satisfaction have different meanings for mothers and fathers, and whether it has equal importance in determining overall life satisfaction by gender. Using a sample of dual-earner parents from the third (2010/11) to the eleventh (2018/19) waves of the German Family Panel (pairfam) panel survey. Our results support the idea that self-realization in partnership, parenting, and work are important for both men and for women. However, there is gender difference in the way that work and family satisfaction is conceived and also in the way that the combined satisfaction in these two life spheres affects overall life satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Subjective well-being
• work–family balance
• labour
• quality of life
• gender
• parents
• life satisfaction
• panel data

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• C38
• I31
• J16
• J18

Acknowledgements

This paper uses data from the German Family Panel pairfam, co-ordinated by Josef Bruderl, Sonja Drobnic, Karsten Hank, Bernhard Nauck, Franz Neyes, and Sbine Walper. Analyses are based on data from waves 3-11 of the German Family Panel (pairfam), release 12.0 (Brüderl et al., 2017). A detailed description of the study can be found in Huinink et al. (2011).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Basic psychological needs are surveyed in different waves. For the imputation of missing values see the Appendix ‘Dataset construction and missing values imputation’.

2 The analyses are robust, dividing the sample by gender.

3 The full results from the EFA and CFA are available from the authors upon request.

4 The general results from OLS regression analyses are not different from our fixed effects estimations in terms of the statistical significance of the variables. The magnitudes of our estimated parameters from FE are smaller, since individual-specific characteristics have been swept away.

5 We also ran random effects (RE) regressions. We evaluate the consistency of the RE estimators comparing them with the FE estimators using the Hausman test. The result does not reveal the higher efficiency of the RE estimator, hence the choice of FE over RE.

6 We also ran corresponding models including interaction terms of gender with the BPN and JDCS dimensions.

7 The following are time-constant: gender and education categories that correspond to levels (primary, secondary, and tertiary).

8 We also did an analysis using interaction terms between gender and the satisfaction indices in our model. Results suggest that improvements in the parenting satisfaction of fathers (as compared to mothers) are positively related to overall life satisfaction.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the EuropeanResearch Council, under the European ERC Grant Agreement no. StG-313617 (SWELL-FER: SubjectiveWell-being and Fertility). Sarah Grace See acknowledges funding from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions under Grant Agreement No. 703115. Pairfam is funded as long-term project by the German Research Foundation (DFG).