Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of having minor children on parents' life satisfaction. Given the demands on working parents in terms of their time and financial resources, the authors suspect a complex interaction between employment and parenthood and explore the effect of parenthood on life satisfaction of mothers and fathers, working parents and those with children of various ages.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from three rounds of the European Social Survey (R3 2006/07, R5 2010/11 and R8 2016/17) are used to account for Ireland's changing economic landscape. Three ordered probit models are estimated examining parents, and mothers and fathers separately.

Findings

The findings indicate that any life satisfaction benefits derived from having children appear to be eroded for working parents. There is a negative association between life satisfaction for working mothers with child(ren) aged between 5 and 12 years. Furthermore, when both parents are working, mothers' life satisfaction is also significantly reduced.

Practical implications

Family policies and supports can shape the effects of parenthood on individual wellbeing and decisions regarding parenthood. Such policies need to be purposeful for working parents of school going children and consistent with economic strategy and labour market goals.

Originality/value

Much of the existing economic research on individual wellbeing and parenthood are focused on the fertility decision rather than examining the factors affecting the life satisfaction of different cohorts of parents thus leading to more targeted and informed policies. Contemporary weighting methodology is employed.

中文翻译：

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在职父母的生活满意度：考察爱尔兰父母的情况

目的

本文的目的是探讨生育未成年子女对父母生活满意度的影响。考虑到对在职父母的时间和经济资源的要求，作者怀疑就业与父母身份之间存在复杂的相互作用，并探讨了父母身份对父母父母，在职父母以及有不同年龄子女的生活满意度的影响。

设计/方法/方法

来自三轮欧洲社会调查的数据（R3 2006/07，R5 2010/11和R8 2016/17）用于说明爱尔兰不断变化的经济格局。估计了三个有序的概率模型，分别检查父母，母亲和父亲。

发现

研究结果表明，生育子女所带来的任何生活满意度收益似乎都对在职父母造成了侵蚀。5至12岁儿童的职业母亲的生活满意度之间存在负相关关系。此外，当父母双方都在工作时，母亲的生活满意度也会大大降低。

实际影响

家庭政策和支持可以影响父母对个人幸福感和父母决定的影响。此类政策必须针对在职学龄儿童的工作父母，并与经济战略和劳动力市场目标保持一致。

创意/价值

现有的有关个人福祉和父母身份的许多经济研究都集中在生育率的决定上，而不是研究影响不同父母群体的生活满意度的因素，从而导致制定更有针对性和更明智的政策。采用了当代加权方法。