Coparenting relationship quality and parenting satisfaction, concerns, and strain among Japanese mothers and fathers in early parenthood

Coparenting relationship quality is a key interpersonal context in which parents’ emotional experiences of childrearing take shape. In Japan, where traditional gendered expectations of ‘mothers as primary caregivers’ coexist with growing norms of paternal involvement, little is known about how multidimensional coparenting relates to parents’ affective attitudes towards parenting or whether these associations differ for fathers and mothers. This study explored patterns of association between multiple facets of coparenting and affective attitudes towards parenting among fathers and mothers in Japan during early parenthood from a gender-informed perspective. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 547 parents (261 fathers, 286 mothers) whose oldest child was aged 3 years or younger. Six dimensions of coparenting were analysed: agreement, closeness, exposure to conflict, support, undermining, and endorsement of partner parenting. Affective attitudes towards parenting were assessed as three subjective affective evaluations: parenting satisfaction, parenting concerns, and parenting strain. Multiple-group path analysis was used to estimate associations while adjusting for socio-demographic covariates. On balance, model comparisons favoured the constrained-equal structural path model over the unconstrained structural path model, suggesting that fathers and mothers shared a broadly similar association structure. Correspondingly, gender differences in individual paths were limited. Within this shared structure, closeness and support were positively associated with parenting satisfaction, agreement was negatively associated with parenting concerns, and exposure to conflict was positively associated with both parenting concerns and parenting strain; undermining and endorsement of partner parenting showed no unique associations. These findings suggest that, in Japan’s transitional context of shifting gender norms and institutional conditions surrounding childrearing, fathers and mothers may share similar patterns linking coparenting dynamics to their affective attitudes towards parenting, highlighting the importance of couple-level processes in family support.