Work and Leisure

Stress and working parents 161their children they are involved in many childcare and household tasks, andperhaps feel particularly tense and anxious. In comparison, we find that whenhigh stress mothers are with their spouse their stress levels decline (stress doesnot vary for high stress fathers when they are with their spouse, children oralone). It may be that the worries of work for fathers and mothers and thedrudgery of childcare and housework for mothers have less salience to thesecouples when they are engaged together with their children.To learn more about the social relationships of these couples we examinedtheir perceptions of their relationships with each other. These items weretaken from the parent surveys. Table 8.5 shows that in all instances low stresscouples have a more positive view of their married lives and seem the mostsatisfied with their spouse.Table 8.5 Couples’ perceptions of relationship with spouseOverallaverage aLow stressN = 60Split stressN = 67High stressN = 45F bPartner and Iunderstand eachotherNot happy withpersonality ofpartnerHappy with roleresponsibilitiesUnhappy aboutfinancial positionNeeds not beingmet byrelationshipHappy with howmanage leisureactivitiesUnhappy withhow handleparent roleresponsibilitiesOverall: satisfiedwith relationshipwith partner3.65 (0.94) 3.81 (0.84) 3.70 (0.79) 3.34 (1.18) 3.45*1.97 (0.94) 1.77 (0.77) 1.96 (0.85) 1.19 (0.18) 3.61*3.95 (0.88) 4.18 (0.76) 3.95 (0.72) 3.66 (1.13) 4.85**2.32 (1.04) 1.96 (0.91) 2.44 (1.02) 2.61 (1.11) 6.25**3.04 (1.14) 2.68 (1.09) 3.03 (1.04) 3.53 (1.19) 7.87***3.47 (0.96) 3.88 (0.85) 3.45 (0.88) 2.94 (0.96) 14.23***1.99 (0.91) 1.61 (0.73) 2.16 (0.91) 2.24 (0.99) 8.96***4.42 (0.88) 4.63 (0.66) 4.47 (0.74) 4.04 (1.20) 6.28**Notes: *p