The Impact of Having a Baby on the Level and Content of Women’s Well-Being
- Peter Johannes Hoffenaar,
- Frank van Balen,
- Jo Hermanns
- … show all 3 hide
Abstract
The primary objective of this study was to more fully understand the impact of having a baby on women’s well-being by attending to both the level and the content of well-being. To cover the judgemental and affective aspects of well-being we included global measures of life satisfaction and well-being and affective experience measures derived from the day reconstruction method. In a sample of 19 first-time mothers no differences between pre and postnatal reports of general life satisfaction, depression, anxiety, and experienced positive and negative affect were found, suggesting that the arrival of the newborn baby does not universally impact on women’s level of well-being. Changes in the content of well-being were studied by examining changes in the way women experience specific activities and interactions with various social partners. There appeared to be an upward shift in experienced positive affect during active leisure and a slight decrease in negative affect during time spent with relatives. The results are discussed in light of previously documented changes across the transition to motherhood in negative mood states, time use, women’s evaluation of various aspects of daily life, and relational satisfaction.
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- Title
- The Impact of Having a Baby on the Level and Content of Women’s Well-Being
- Open Access
- Available under Open Access This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
- Journal
-
Social Indicators Research
Volume 97, Issue 2 , pp 279-295
- Cover Date
- 2010-06-01
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11205-009-9503-0
- Print ISSN
- 0303-8300
- Online ISSN
- 1573-0921
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Keywords
-
- Transition to motherhood
- Well-being
- Experienced affect
- Structural change
- Accentuation principle
- Time use
- Daily life
- Diary recall
- Episodic reports
- Cross-method convergence
- Industry Sectors
- Authors
-
-
Peter Johannes Hoffenaar
(1)
- Frank van Balen (1)
- Jo Hermanns (1)
-
Peter Johannes Hoffenaar
- Author Affiliations
-
- 1. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands