Balancing Parent Care With Other Roles: Interrole Conflict of Adult Daughter Caregivers

Abstract

This study examined interrole conflict experienced by 278 women who simultaneously occupied 4 roles: parent care provider, mother to children at home, wife, and employee. Compared with women who experienced no conflict between parent care and their other roles, women reporting parent care conflict tended to have fewer socio-economic resources, to have older children, and to be caring for parents with greater impairment. Women who reported conflicts between parent care and employment were older; had more education; had marriages of longer duration; and had older, more self-sufficient children than women who reported conflict between the parent care role and the mother role. Some evidence was found for the hypothesis that interrole conflict between parent care and other roles mediates the relationship between parent care stress and psychosocial well-being. Results suggest that one way parent care stress exerts its deleterious effects on the well-being of adult daughters is through the incompatible pressures of parent care and other roles.