Gender differences in parental involvement in dual-earner family

Tan, Jie Lin (2024) Gender differences in parental involvement in dual-earner family. Final Year Project, UTAR.

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Abstract

It has long been noted that active parental involvement in children’s early education has a significant impact on their academic success. However, with the increasing participation of both fathers and mothers in the workforce, parental involvement may face challenges. Despite the rise of dual-earner families, existing research often overlooks the role of fathers and the impact of maternal employment on parental involvement. To bridge the knowledge gap, this study investigated gender differences in parental involvement between dual-earner parents across six domains: parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home,decisionmaking and collaborating with community. This study applied Albert Bandura’s social learning theory of gender role development and Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory. Employing a quantitative cross-sectional approach and purposive sampling, data were gathered from 64 paired of dual-earner parent (64 fathers and 64 mothers) in Selangor through Parent and School Surveys (PASS) by Ringenberg (2005). Analysis using the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test revealed significant differences between fathers and mothers (p < 0.001), with mothers displaying notably greater involvement across all six domains. Large effect sizes were observed in all areas except parenting, which showed a moderate effect size. These findings emphasized the need for dual-earner parents to balance work and family responsibilities to enhance their parental involvement. Also, this implied to the preschool operators and educators to reassess their strategies to engage fathers, enhance their knowledge and skills in involving fathers and build community connections to foster parental involvement. The study’s limitations included its reliance on quantitative research methods and its limited representativeness due to the small sample size and purposive sampling. Future research should consider employing mixedmethod approaches, enlarging sample sizes, and adopting cluster sampling techniques to gain a deeper understanding of parental involvement in dual-earner families. Keywords: Parental involvement, parent’s gender, dual-earner families, young children

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