Dual-earner wives’ and husbands’ perceptions of their children's day care experiences: Relationship to personal well-being, marital stress, and job satisfaction

Dual-earner mothers and fathers whose children were enrolled in day care for at least two years were asked to rate the care environment, assess its effects on children's development and parent-child relations, and to provide assessments of marital stress, job satisfaction, and emotional support. Mothers and fathers did not differ significantly on any of the measures. A path model failed to provide support for the contention that personal well-being mediates influences from the broader social context on the parent-child relationship of day care children; however, it did show that the parent-child relationship may buffer certain influences from the broader social context on children's developmental status. The data are discussed with respect to the need to examine day care issues from an interrelated systems perspective.