Effects of Parental Child-Care Division Imbalance on Mothers’ Marital Satisfaction in First Time Parents of Newborns: The Moderating Role of Housework Division Imbalance

This study investigates how the relative imbalance in parents’ childcare and housework division affects mothers’ marital satisfaction in families with a firstborn newborn and examines the interaction between the two imbalances. Using data from the 2022 wave of the Korean Early Childhood Education and Care Panel, we calculated childcare-division and housework-division imbalance indices for 1,629 mothers based on their reports of each partner’s share of these tasks. Regression analyses with SPSS 23.0 and PROCESS Macro 4.2 (Model 1) tested the moderating effect of housework imbalance. Results showed that both childcare and housework imbalances significantly lowered mothers’ marital satisfaction, and their interaction term was also significantly negative. Marital satisfaction declined most steeply when mothers carried a disproportionately large share of both childcare and housework, whereas in families where fathers assumed more childcare responsibilities, the negative effect of housework imbalance was attenuated. The findings highlight that perceived fairness in the division of parental roles during the newborn period is pivotal for maintaining mothers’ marital satisfaction and underscore the need for policies and programs that promote equitable sharing of childcare and housework between spouses.