Decent Work and Fertility Intentions Among Korean Working Women: The Moderating Role of Spousal Support

In South Korea, where gendered caregiving expectations and rigid labor-market structures jointly constrain women’s ability to reconcile work and family, working women’s fertility intentions may be shaped by conditions in both domains. Drawing on the work–home resources model and conservation of resources theory, this study examined whether the associations between decent work and fertility intentions through work–family conflict (WFC) and work–family enrichment (WFE) were conditional on spousal support for work–family reconciliation. Using three-wave data from 300 Korean married working women, results revealed that decent work was associated with fertility intentions through WFE only when spousal support was high, whereas the conditional indirect effect through WFC was non-significant. These findings suggest that the extent to which resources generated through decent work contribute to fertility intentions is contingent on spousal support, underscoring the interdependence of work- and family-domain resources in shaping women’s fertility intentions.