Daily work stress and parent-to-child aggression: moderation of grandparent coresidence

Abstract

Abstract Parental work stress was associated with parenting irritability and use of harsh disciplinary practices, but little is known about how daily fluctuations in work stress proliferate to everyday parenting practices in the context of multigenerational living. Using a quasi-experimental design, this study examined how grandparental coresidence moderates the link between daily work stress and parent-to-child aggression (PCA). Using propensity scores, we matched 129 three-generation households with 133 two-generation households in Zhengzhou, China, based on multiple family characteristics. Parents in both groups completed daily questionnaires for 15 consecutive days. Fixed effects models estimated the within-person associations between parent daily work stress and PCA among the two comparison groups. We found substantial daily fluctuations in parent work stress and PCA. The association between parent daily work stress and PCA significantly varied between two- and three-generation families and was only significant among the former. We conclude that co-residing grandparent(s) could be an important resource that buffers the work-to-PCA stress proliferation. Child abuse prevention programs would likely benefit from concerting with policies supporting the wellbeing of older adults and programs promoting work-life balance.