THE LEVEL OF SATISFACTION WITH LIFE AFTER BECOMING A PARENT:GENDER DIFFERENTIATION

 Fulbright English Pre-academic Course 2008

OPIE

Institutional Affiliation - Ohio University

Names of authors

Pavlo Bohutskiy – Ukraine Gwendoline Nyambi– Cameroon Svitlana Volkova – Ukraine

Overview Introduction Background Research Question Methodology Results Conclusions Acknowledgments Questions

BackgroundCook et al, 1982:

– Attitudes towards marriage on the increase The idea that “marriage without children is not fully complete''

– Attitudes towards having children on the decrease

• Preference given to other priorities in life:– career, money making, fun, self denial

Transition to the parenthood• The change of married couple to parenthood is considered a

“critical role transition point” – Aldous, 1978

• Some authors present the transition to parenthood as a usual event that can easily be predicted and managed – Charting Parenthood, 2002

• It proves the fact that both personal and marital stress increase after becoming a parent

• Multicultural Health Communication Centre, June 2003:– Research also shows that parenthood could be a reason of

feelings like: anger, stress, guilt, confusion, and anxiety

Influence on life satisfaction?

Gender roles• Gender role attitudes shape parental attitudes differentially for

men and women Bernhartdt & Goldscheider, 2006

• Orientation towards transitions to fatherhood :– Coltrane, 1996– Nielsen, 1999

Research Question• Do males and females report different levels

of life satisfaction after becoming parents?

Main Goals To define changes in life attitudes in female and

male after becoming a parents

To evaluate changes in life preferences before and after parenthood

To prove or deny the hypothesis of gender influence on peoples’ life satisfaction after parenthood

ResearchResearch

SurveySurvey

AnalysesAnalyses

Methodology: Questionnaire• General information:

– gender, age, country and number of children.• Before parenthood:

– rank of life priorities– scale of time spent on those activities;– level of life satisfaction.

• After parenthood:– rank of life priorities– scale of time spent on those activities;– level of life satisfaction.

0 – 100%

7 main priorities

ParticipantsMalesMales FemalesFemales

GenderGender

38.5% 65.5%

Age Females MalesResponse Percent

Response Percent

<25 31.3% 50.0%

26-30 43.8% 20.0%

>30 25.0% 30.0%

Amount of children

Females MalesResponse Percent

Response Percent

1 75.0% 70.0%2 12.5% 20.0%>2 12.5% 10.0%

Distinctions in rank of priorities in life by gender

Conclusions from figures:• there are no direct relation between the ranking of priorities

and time spent for the specific activity

• For male:• – the level of priority in per cent for such activities as

sport/health, friends, career and self improvement are high then the per cent of time spent for these actions;

• the level of priority in per cent for activities such as family and money making is less than the per cent of time spent.

Conclusions from figures:• For female:

• – the level of priority in per cent for such activities as sport/health, friends and self improvement are high then the per cent of time spent for these actions;

• the level of priority in per cent for activities such as family is less than the per cent of time spent.

• The gap between priorities and time spent for male is 1.7 time more than for female

Conclusions• Birth of a child makes females feel less satisfied in life in

contrast to male who feel more satisfied.

• Before becoming a parent females have opportunities to spent more time for such activities as:

– as money making and career, what make them feel more independent and self-confident;

– part of females has to combine motherhood and work, or part time work.

Thank you for attention

Questions?