Mothers’ return-to-work reasons and work–family conflict: does a partner involved in childcare make a difference?

ABSTRACT

Facilitating mothers’ work–family reconciliation upon their return to work can be considered a viable means of enhancing women’s overall employment participation. This study examined return-to-work reasons among mothers with a one-year-old child, how these reasons are related to mothers’ background characteristics, work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) and whether having a partner home caring for the child protects against such conflicts. Results based on survey data collected from Finnish working mothers (N = 573) in 2016 showed four dimensions of return-to-work reasons: personal importance of work, work- and career-related worries, dissatisfaction with stay-at-home mothering and convenient work/childcare conditions. Higher personal importance of work was associated with lower levels of WFC and FWC, whereas higher work- and career-related worries were related to higher WFC and FWC. Higher dissatisfaction with stay-at-home mothering was associated with higher WFC and higher convenient work/childcare conditions with lower WFC. Having a partner on care-related leave did not protect against the conflict.

KEYWORDS:

• Employed mothers
• family and work
• Finland
• return to work‌
• work-life balance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Although a moderating effect of partners on care-related leave was not found, the results are presented separately for the two groups as partial strict invariance was found for the measurement model of work–family conflict.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Finnish Strategic Research Council, Academy of Finland [grant Number SA314317].

Notes on contributors

Sanna Moilanen

Sanna Moilanen (PhD in Education) is Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Education at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her current research interests focus on fertility and subsequent childbearing, reconciliation of work and family life, parenting and working mothers.

Eija Räikkönen

Eija Räikkönen (PhD in Psychology, MSc in Statistics) is Adjunct Professor and a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is an expert in applied quantitative research methodology.

Maarit Alasuutari

Maarit Alasuutari is Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and the leader of CHILDCARE Research Consortium.