When women’s work benefits family: The impact of mothers’ work-family enrichment on parenting guilt

Recently, scholars have examined the detrimental impact of parenting guilt, yet little is known about its mechanisms in Chinese. Based on family system theory, this study explores the relationship between work-family enrichment and parenting guilt, with parenting sense of competence as mediating variable and fathers' co-parenting as moderating variable. We distributed questionnaires to 476 mother and collected data at three time points. We found that work-family enrichment was negatively associated with parenting guilt, and the relationship was mediated by parenting sense of competence. Fathers' co-parenting moderated the relationship between work-family enrichment and parenting guilt. These findings further our understanding of parenting guilt in Chinese culture, as well as suggest the importance of work-family enrichment and fathers' co-parenting for maternal guilt.