Maternal employment and parenting stress among unmarried mothers with a welfare history

The purpose of this study is to examine the associations between employment and parenting stress among unmarried mothers with welfare history who have at least one child at age one. This study focuses on the potential mediating effects of problems related to inflexible work schedules on the relationship between employment and parenting stress. Also, this study investigates two moderating effects – current maternal welfare status and maternal relationship status—on the relationship between employment and parenting stress. Furthermore, this study compares unmarried mothers with a welfare history to unmarried mothers without a welfare history in order to reveal the unique relationship between employment and parenting stress specifically for unmarried mothers with welfare history. In order to best identify the aforementioned associations, this study also takes into account a wide array of background factors: family, maternal, and child characteristics. This study utilizes data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which follows a birth cohort of approximately 4,800 children of both unmarried and married parents, with births to unmarried parents substantially over-sampled (75%). Overall, mothers with a welfare history show significantly higher levels of parenting stress than do mothers without a welfare history. Importantly, problems related to inflexible work schedules substantially increase parenting stress, and furthermore, inflexible work schedules greatly decrease the possible beneficial influence of employment on parenting stress among mothers with a welfare history. However, mothers’ current welfare status and relationship to the child’s father do not change the relationship between maternal employment and parenting stress. Comparison of unmarried mothers with a welfare history and mothers without a welfare history indicates that the relationship between employment (and related factors) and parenting stress varies for the two groups.