Abstract:
There is a large body of Western literature exploring many aspects of parental
employment and the effects these may have on both the rewarding and challenging moments
parents experience with their young children. However, there remains a lack of research
relevant to the Aotearoa New Zealand context, with implications specific to working parents
within current New Zealand society. This thesis aims to fill this gap by exploring how the
different employment situations of New Zealand parents affect their self-reported highlights
and challenges with their child. Data from mothers (N = 6822) and their partners (N = 4404)
within a current New Zealand longitudinal study found similarities in the highlights reported
by working and non-working parents but variation in the reported challenges with respect to
different aspects of employment (such as working hours and work schedule). Subsequent
logistic regression analysis revealed that the most frequently reported challenges for both
working and non-working parents (relating to work-life balance, parent-child bonding, sleep
challenges, managing behaviour, child attributes, and parenthood in its entirety) were related
to aspects of parental employment for both mothers and partners. These factors included
work hours and schedules, childcare, child parity, parental age, socioeconomic deprivation,
household income, and solo parenting. Of note, work-life balance challenges were found to
have a large number of predictors, especially for mothers, reiterating the importance of
supportive strategies for working mothers. The range of other predictive relationships
presents implications for workplaces to provide flexibility and support for employees. These
results align in general with existing literature and contribute to the small body of parental
employment research specific to Aotearoa NZ, with findings that may inform Aotearoa’s
working parents.
