This study investigates the effects of child care activation, parenting stress, and marital conflict perceived by mothers and fathers on infants’ social competence. Using the data from the 7th year (2014) of the Korean Children’s Panel collected by the Childcare Policy Research Institute, the mothers and fathers of 6-year-old children were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. First, both the mother and father showed parenting stress and marital conflict and a negative correlation with the children’s sense of social competence. Second, it can be seen that marital conflict perceived by the mother and marital conflict perceived by the father and parenting stress have a negative effect on the children’s sense of social competence. Third, it can be seen that children’s sense of social competence has the most influence on marital conflict perceived by mothers and parenting stress perceived by fathers. These results suggest that to cultivate children’s sense of social competence, mothers should manage marital conflicts in their fathers’ relationships, and fathers should manage parenting stress in their relationships with their children.
Lee et al. (Mon,) studied this question.