Social support as a moderator between the relationship of parental status of women in dual-earner families and marital adjustment

The Triple ABCX Model (Anderson et al.. 1993) and the Stress Buffering Hypothesis (Cohen & Wills, 1985) were used in guiding the examination of moderating effects of social support on the relationship between parental status and marital adjustment in dual-eamer women. As predicted, dual-eamer women without children reported higher levels of marital adjustment when compared to dual-eamer women with children. Contrary to predictions, the social support network size was not associated with the level of marital adjustment. However, fdings did support the hypothesis that women with children who reported lower social exchange support (affective and instrumental) were the most vulnerable compared to the other groups. Findings also indicated that affective exchange was an influential dimension of social support, whereas instrumental was not. Implications and limitations of the research were also discussed.