Association and comparison of emotional availability of working parents with child and parental characteristics

Emotional availability refers to the capacity of parents to be emotionally present and responsive towards their children despite of their work commitments. Emotional availability is crucial in parent-child relationship as it forms the foundation for healthy emotional development and attachment bonds. Due to work, pressure and lack of time parents are unavailable to their children, which is affecting child's behavior. Hence, the study was undertaken to study the emotional availability of working parents. The study was conducted in Baptala taluk of Bapatla district with a sample of 165 high school children whose both parents were working. The data was collected through general information schedule, socio-economic status was measured by using the scale developed by Kuppuswamy (2020). In order to know the child's perception on parent's emotional availability, Lum Emotional Availability scale was used. The data was analyzed through descriptive statistics, chi-square, t-test and ANOVA. The findings of the study revealed that mothers were highly (M= 62.92) emotionally available compared to fathers (M = 55.21) and the difference was found to be significant 1 percent level. Further, a significant association was found between father's emotional availability with age, gender, standard of the child, father's education, occupation and socio-economic status. With regard to fathers emotional availability, a significant difference was found between different age groups (5.23**), gender (11.33**), standard (3.05*) of the child, father's education (2.07*) and socio-economic status (4.39**). Further, a significant association of mother's emotional availability with child's age, standard, mother's age, education and socio-emotional status was found. A significant mean difference in mother's emotional availability was also observed with respect to child's age (14.81**), standard (3.05**), mother's age (2.71*) and socio-economic status (2.64*). The study concluded that fathers were low in emotional availability compared to mothers.