Using longitudinal data analysis, the study investigated how father involvement in child rearing, marital conflict, and mother’s parenting stress change over time and how the initial value and the rate of change are correlated. Date from the Panel Study of Korean Children (PSKC), in which 1,617 subjects participated from the 2nd (2009) to the 4th(2011) years were analyzed using applied multivariate latent growth model.
Finding from the analysis of optimal growth model for each variable are as follows:
(1) Marital conflict and mother’s parenting stress demonstrated the linear change model, where the variables continued to increase over time, whereas father’s child rearing involvement was explained with the single potential model, which did not show such liner change; (2) longitudinal analysis of the mediating effects among the three variables demonstrated that, even though father involvement in child rearing did not have a direct impact on the rate of change in mother’s parenting stress, it still indirectly affected the rate of change by means of marital conflict; and that initial time had a direct impact on mother’s parenting stress, not via marital conflict.