Children’s Happiness and Executive Function Difficulty Associated with Working Mothers’ Profiles in Parenting Behaviors and Work-Family Balance

The purpose of this study is to identify (a) the number and characteristics of working mothers’ profiles in parenting behaviors (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting) and work-family balance (work-family benefits and conflicts), (b) predictors (age, education, health status, household income, and marital relationship satisfaction) of the profiles, and (c) how the maternal profiles are associated with children’s happiness and executive function difficulty. Our sample consisted of 704 working mothers from the 10th wave of the Panel Study on Korean Children. The children of the working mothers were in the 3rd grade of elementary school. Using Mplus, we applied latent profile analysis and identified three profiles: (1) authoritative mothers with work-family benefits (30.1%); (2) authoritative mothers with a high level of control and permission and work-family balance (53.3%); and (3) inconsistent mothers with work-family conflicts (16.6%). Education, health status, and marital relationship satisfaction were the significant antecedents of the profiles. Also, children of the ‘authoritative mothers with work-family benefits’ and ‘authoritative mothers with a high level of control and permission and work-family balance’ showed a significantly higher level of happiness than those of the ‘inconsistent mothers with work-family conflicts’. Our findings provide valuable implications for family policies and practices regarding the impact of education, health status, and marital relationship satisfaction on working mothers’ parenting and the importance of working mothers’ roles on children’s happiness and executive functioning.