Abstract
The current study draws on identity theory to explore mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in childcare. It examined the relationships between the salience and centrality of individuals’ parental and work-related identities and the extent to which they are involved in various forms of childcare. A sample of 148 couples with at least one child aged 6 years old or younger completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesized, the salience and centrality of parental identities were positively related to mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in childcare. Moreover, maternal identity salience was negatively related to fathers’ hours of childcare and share of childcare tasks. Finally, work hours mediated the negative relationships between the centrality of work identities and time invested in childcare, and gender moderated this mediation effect. That is, the more central a mother’s work identity, the more hours she worked for pay and the fewer hours she invested in childcare. These findings shed light on the role of parental identities in guiding behavioral choices and attest to the importance of distinguishing between identity salience and centrality as two components of self-structure.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 475-489 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Psychology of Women Quarterly |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 26 Dec 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Author(s) 2014.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 253022.
Funders | Funder number |
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Seventh Framework Programme | 253022 |
Seventh Framework Programme |
Keywords
- child care
- identity
- parental involvement
- self-concept