The Effects of Fathers' Gender Role Attitudes and Family-Supportive Organizational Cultures on Parental Role Satisfaction Among Fathers of Preschoolers: Mediating Effect of Parenting Involvement

Objectives: With growing emphasis on fathers' parenting involvement, this study explored how fathers' gender role attitudes and family-supportive organizational cultures affect their parental role satisfaction, highlighting the mediating role of fathers' parenting involvement in these relationships.Methods: A total of 228 Korean fathers with children aged 3-5 years participated in the study via online survey. Participants were employed in Korea by small, medium, and large companies, as well as by public institutions, or state-owned enterprises. The survey assessed fathers' gender role attitudes, whether their employers had family-supportive organizational cultures, as well as fathers’ parenting involvement and parental role satisfaction. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 23.0. The analysis included frequency analysis, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and structural equation modeling.Results: Fathers’ gender role attitudes did not directly influence their parental role satisfaction, whereas family-supportive organizational cultures had a direct and significant effect on the outcome. However, fathers’ gender role attitudes did indirectly and significantly influence their parental role satisfaction through parenting involvement. This was not observed for family-supportive organizational cultures.Conclusion: Fathers’ gender role attitudes indirectly affected parental role satisfaction through parenting involvement, whereas family-supportive organizational cultures directly impacted this outcome. Both individual characteristics (fathers’ gender role attitudes) and environmental factors (family-supportive organizational cultures) played crucial roles in shaping fathers' parental role satisfaction. These results highlight the importance of policies and strategies that foster more egalitarian gender role attitudes, encourage greater parenting involvement, and promote family-supportive organizational cultures to enhance parental role satisfaction among fathers of preschoolers.