Multidimensionality of Well-Being and Spillover Effects Across Life Domains: How Do Parenthood and Personality Affect Changes in Domain-Specific Satisfaction?

Abstract

Whether having children improves our well-being is a long-standing topic of debate. Demographic and sociological research has investigated changes in individuals’ overall well-being and partnership satisfaction when they become parents. However, little is known about how becoming parent may produce vulnerability—observable as an enduring decrease in well-being—in life domains that are strongly interdependent with the family domain, such as work and leisure. Linking life-course and personality psychology perspectives, the authors examine the trajectories of subjective well-being—measured as satisfaction with life, work, and leisure—3 years before and 3 years after the transition to parenthood. The authors particularly focus on the moderating effects of gender and personality. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984–2013) and multilevel growth curve modeling, the authors show strong gender-based vulnerability in how people react to parenthood. Although men display a nonlinear pathway of decreasing life satisfaction and a stable trajectory of job satisfaction, women experience more changes in their satisfaction with work and more dramatic decreases in leisure satisfaction. Contrary to most of our expectations, the moderating effects of personality were modest. Extraversion influenced the trajectories of work satisfaction, whereas neuroticism and conscientiousness affected the pathway of leisure satisfaction for women only. This article shows that the transition to parenthood influences well-being trajectories in specific domains, and this influence differs between women and men.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are indebted to the LIVES colleagues who commented on earlier versions of the article and to the anonymous RHD reviewers who helped us to improve it. This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: 51NF40-160590). The authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for its financial assistance.

FUNDING

This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming Vulnerability: Life Course Perspective, which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for its financial assistance.

Notes

¹ In cases in which the partner continues to live in the same household as the respondent and is thus also interviewed, we use data on both partners.

² We thus have seven time periods: (−3) 3 years before (reference period), (−2) 2 years before, (−1) 1 year before, (0) year of childbirth, (1) 1 year after, (2) 2 years after, and (3) 3 years after childbirth.

³ Respondents did not receive any specific indications regarding what leisure activities entail.

⁴ We use satisfaction with health rather than self-rated health, given the high level of missing information for the latter (26.02%).

⁵ Cubic terms proved significant only in the model predicting leisure satisfaction (reported in Table 2).

⁶ Supplementary investigations reveal that the mean score is 8.81 for men, whereas it is 2.56 for women. Women are more likely to have part-time work or no work.

⁷ A Bonferroni’s correction was used to adjust the p values of these multiple pairwise comparisons. Exact values of these comparisons are available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming Vulnerability: Life Course Perspective, which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. The authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for its financial assistance.