Marital Adjustment, Parenting Stress, and Gender Role Attitudes Among Married Individuals: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Analysis.

Abstract

Marriage and parenting are relational experiences shaped by mutual interactions between partners; however, most studies have examined these processes at the individual level. This cross-sectional correlational study investigated actor and partner associations among gender role attitudes, parenting stress, and marital adjustment in 153 married heterosexual couples in Türkiye using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Data were collected using the Gender Roles Attitude Scale, Parenting Stress Scale, and Marital Adjustment Scale. More egalitarian gender role attitudes were associated with lower parenting stress and higher marital adjustment at the actor level in both women and men. Parenting stress was not significantly associated with individuals' own marital adjustment. Partner effects showed gendered patterns: men's egalitarian gender role attitudes were positively associated with women's marital adjustment, whereas women's gender role attitudes were not significantly associated with men's marital adjustment. In addition, parenting stress showed significant crossover associations, with men's parenting stress showing a numerically larger standardized association with women's marital adjustment than the reverse pathway. These findings highlight the interdependent nature of couple relationships and suggest that gender role attitudes and parenting stress may operate not only within individuals but also across partners in relation to marital adjustment.