The Mediating Effects of Marital Intimacy and Work Satisfaction in the Relationship between Husbands’ Domestic Labor and Depressive Mood of Married Working Women

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships between the husbands’ domestic labor and marital intimacy, work satisfaction, and depressive mood in married working women. We used the sixth (2016) dataset from the Women and Families Panel Survey conducted by the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI). The subjects were 791 married working women who lived with a wage-earner husband and who did not have a housework assistant. The correlations between variables were measured and the fit of the structural equation model was assessed. We used a mediation model in which the husbands’ domestic labor affected the depressive mood of married working women through mediation of marital intimacy and work satisfaction. Bootstrapping was used to verify the significance of the indirect effects of the mediating variables. Husbands’ domestic labor had a significant effect on married women’s marital intimacy and work satisfaction, but no significant direct effect on depressive mood. Marital intimacy had a significant effect on work satisfaction, and these two variables were significantly related to reductions in the depressive mood score. Husbands’ domestic labor was found to be a complete mediator of depressive mood through its effects on marital intimacy and work satisfaction. Husbands’ domestic labor did not directly reduce married working women’s depressive mood scores, but instead reduced them indirectly through effects on marital intimacy and work satisfaction.