The mediating role of valuing children between marital relationship satisfaction and parental sense of competence in the longitudinal dyadic approach

유아기 자녀를 둔 부모의 결혼만족도와 양육효능감의 관계에서 자녀가치의 매개효과

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine whether the maternal and paternal value of children mediates the relationship between the marital relationship satisfaction and the parental sense of competence in the longitudinal dyadic approach. Method: The data were obtained from the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) conducted by the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model（APIM), the author analyzed three waves (from 5th to 7th year) of the data, and the sample size was 1,773. The average age was 34.79 for mothers, and 37.26 for fathers. Their average length of marriage was 95.3 months, and their children were 51.03 months old on average. Results: The marital relationship satisfaction influenced the parental sense of competence with both the actor effect and the partner effect of mothers and fathers. The marital relationship satisfaction also influenced the value of children, with the actor effect from both mothers and fathers and with the partner effect only from mothers. The value of children influenced the parental sense of competence with the actor effect only from mothers and fathers. Also, the value of children mediated the relationship between the marital relationship satisfaction and the parental sense of competence with the actor effect from both mothers and fathers. For the partner effect, only the mediation path from fathers' marital relationship satisfaction to mothers' value of children to mothers' parental sense of competence was significant. Conclusions: These results suggest the importance of highlighting the marital relationship satisfaction and the value of children to improve the parental sense of competence.