Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUTThis article has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cross
Cultural Psychology (Dec, 2021), published by Sage.

Gender equality and maternal burnout: a 40-country study

Corresponding author: Isabelle Roskam, isabelle.roskam@uclouvain.be
ORCID 0000-0002-1449-113
UCLouvain, Department of Psychology, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Isabelle Roskam (coordinator and corresponding author), Laura Gallée Joyce Aguiar , Ege
Akgun , Andrew Arena , Gizem Arikan , Kaisa Aunola , Michel Bader , Elizabeth J. Barham ,Eliane Besson , Wim Beyers , Emilie Boujut , Maria Elena Brianda , Anna Brytek-Matera ,Noémie Carbonneau , Filipa César , Bin-Bin Chen , Géraldine Dorard , Luciana Carla dos
Santos Elias , Sandra Dunsmuir , Natalia Egorova , Nicolas Favez , Anne-Marie Fontaine ,Heather Foran , Julia Fricke , Kaichiro Furutani , Myrna Gannagé , Maria Gaspar , Lucie
Godbout , Amit Goldenberg , James J. Gross , Maria Ancuta Gurza , Muhammad Aamir
Hashmi , Mai Helmy , Mai Trang Huynh , Emerence Kaneza , Taishi Kawamoto , Nassima
Kellou , Goran Knezevic , Ljiljana B. Lazarevic , Sarah Le Vigouroux , Astrid LebertCharron , Vanessa Leme , Gao-Xian Lin , Carolyn MacCann , Denisse Manrique-Millones ,Marisa Matias , María Isabel Miranda-Orrego , Marina Miscioscia , Clara Morgades-Bamba ,Seyyedeh Fatemeh Mousavi , Badra Moutassem-Mimouni , Ana Muntean , Hugh Murphy ,Alexis Ndayizigiye , Josué Ngnombouowo Tenkue , Sally Olderbak , Sophie Ornawka ,Daniela Oyarce-Cadiz , Pablo A. Pérez-Díaz , Konstantinos V. Petrides , Claudia PinedaMarin , Alena Prikhidko , Fernando Salinas-Quiroz , Raquel Sánchez-Rodríguez , Ainize
Sarrionandia , Céline Scola , Alessandra Simonelli , Bart Soenens , Emma Sorbring , Matilda
Sorkkila , Charlotte Schrooyen , Elena Stănculescu , Elena Starchenkova , Dorota Szczygiel ,Thi Minh Thuy Tri , Mélissa Tremblay , A. Meltem Ustundag-Budak , Maday Valdés
Pacheco , Hedwig van Bakel , Lesley Verhofstadt , Jaqueline Wendland , Saengduean
Yotanyamaneewong , Moïra Mikolajczak
1

1,

3

4

5

9

6

10

14

2

20

31

34

32

34

35

1

37

2

39

38

40

42

43

44

46

50

55

10

30

51-52

10

56

57

14

58

59

61

59

63

14

17

54

6

20

45

47

49

62

41

33

31

53

23

26

30

36

48

2

9

25

28-29

11

10

19

22

24-25

33

13

15

18

21

27

8

1-12

17

14

7

11

16

2

10

11

1

UCLouvain, Department of Psychology, Place Cardinal Mercier 10, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
University of Porto, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Center for Psychology, Rua Alfredo
Allen, s/n, 4200-135 Porto, Portugal.
Ankara University, Department of Preschool Education, Egitim Bilimleri Fakultesi Cebeci, 06590 Ankara,
Turkey.
University of New South Wales, The Black Dog Institute, Hospital Rd, Randwick, NSW, 2031, Australia.
Ozyegin University, Department of Psychology, Nisantepe Mah Orman Sok, 34794 Cekmekoy, Turkey.
University of Jyväskylä, Department of Psychology, P.O. Box 35, 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
University of Lausanne (UNIL), Department DP CHUV, Avenue Pierre-Decker 5, CH 1011 Lausanne,
Switzerland.
Federal University in São Carlos, Department of Psychology, Rodovia Washington Luís km 235, 13564-180 São
Carlos, Brazil.
Saint-Joseph University, Department of Psychology, Rue de Damas, B.P. 17-5208- Mar Mikhael, Beyrouth11042020, Lebanon.
Ghent University, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Henri Dunantlaan 2, 9000 Gent, Belgium.
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

1

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Université de Paris, Laboratoire de Psychopathologie et Processus de Santé, F-92100 Boulogne Billancourt,
France.
Université de Liège, Faculté de Psychologie, Logopédie et Sciences de l’Education, Place des Orateurs, 2, 4000
Liège, Belgium.
University of Wroclaw, Institute of Psychology, Dawida 1, 50-527 Wroclaw, Poland.
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Département de Psychologie, 3351 Boulevard Des Forges, TroisRivières, Québec, Canada.
Fudan University, Department of Psychology, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai 200433, China.
University of São Paulo, Department of Psychology, Avenue. Dr. Renato Pagano 416-A, Cravinhos, São Paulo,
Brazil.
University College London, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H
0AP, United Kingdom.
EPSM de l'Agglomération Lilloise, Psychiatrie adulte, 1 Rue de Lommelet, 59350 Saint-André-lez-Lille,
France.
University of Geneva, Department of Psychology, Uni Mail, 40 Bvd du Pont d'Arve, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.
Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Abteilung für Gesundheitspsychologie, Universitätsstraße 65-67, 9020
Klagenfurt, Austria.
Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics,
Luisenstr. 57, 10117 Berlin, Germany.
Hokkai-gakuen University, Faculty of Business Administration, 4-1-40, Asahimachi, Toyohiraku, Sapporo,
Japan.
University of Coimbra, Centre for Social Studies, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Rua doColégio Novo, Ap.6153, 3000-115 Coimbra, Portugal.
Harvard University, Harvard Business School139 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Stanford University, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2130, USA.
DGASPC Timis, Department of Psychology, Pta Regina Maria Nr.3, Timisoara, Romania.
University of the Punjab, Institute of Education and Research, Lahore, Pakistan.
Menoufia university, Psychology department, Faculty of Arts, Gamal abdel naser street- Shebin el kom Menoufia governorate, Egypt.
Sultan Qaboos university, Psychology department, College of Education, Oman, Egypt.
University of Social Sciences and Humanities, HoChiMinh National University, Faculty of Psychology, 10 - 12
Dinh Tien Hoang, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Clinique de l’Education et de la Psychothérapie, Robero I, 6136 Bujumbura, Burundi
Chubu University, College of Humanities, Department of Psychology, 1200 Matsumoto-cho, Kasugai, Aichi
487-8501, Japan.
Université Mohamed Benahmed Oran2, Department of Psychology, 109 rue de Mostaganem, Oran, Algeria.
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Cika Ljubina 18-20, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
Université de Nîmes, APSY-V, F-30021 Nîmes Cedex 1, France.
Rio de Janeiro State University, Department of Psychology, Place Edmundo March 20, flat 201, Boa Viagem,
Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The University of Sydney, School of Psychology, Manning Road, Camperdown, Sydney, Australia.
Universidad San Martín de Porres, Psychology Research Institute, Av. Tomás Marsano 242, Lima 34, Peru.
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Faculty of Psychology, Av. 12 de Octubre 1076 y Roca Quito,
Ecuador.
University of Padua, Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Via Giustiniani 3, 35128 Padua, Italy.
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Departamento de Psicología Social y de las
Organizaciones, Juan del Rosal, 10, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
Alzahra University, Research Group of Psychology, Women Research Center, North Sheikh Bahaee St., Deh-e
Vanak, 1993891176 Tehran, Iran.
West University in Timisoara, Social Work Department, West University, Bul. Vasile Parvan nr.4, Timisoara,
Romania.
Université de Yaoundé 1, Department of Psychology, BP. 8056 Yaounde, Cameroon.
Ulm University, Institute of Psychology and Education, Albert-Einstein-Allee 47, 89081 Ulm, Germany.
Universidad Santo Tomás, Department of Psychology, Avenida Carlos Schorr 255, Talca, Región del Maule,
Chile.
Austral University of Chile, Institute of Psychology, Los Pinos Avenue, W/N, Pelluco, Puerto Montt, Chile.
Konrad Lorenz University Foundation, Department of Psychology, Cra. 9 Bis #62-43, 110231 Bogotá,
Colombia.
Florida International University, Counseling, Recreation and School Psychology, 11200 SW 8 Str, Miami,
Florida, USA.
11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

2

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Facultad de Medicina, Las Heras 429 7mo. B, Argentina.
Institut Catholique de Toulouse, 31 rue de la Finderie, 7012, 31068 Toulouse Cedex 7, France.
Université de Toulouse, Center for Studies and Research in Psychopathology and Health Psychology, UT2J, 5
All. Antonio Machado, 31058 Toulouse, France.
University of the Basque Country, Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatments, Tolosa
Hiribidea 70, Donostia 20018, Gipuzkoa, Basque Country, Spain.
Aix Marseille Univ, PSYCLE, Aix en Provence, France.
University of Padova, Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Via Venezia 8, 35141 Padova,
Italy.
University West, Department of Social and Behavioral Studies, 461 86 Trollhättan, Sweden.
University of Bucharest, Teacher Training Department, Panduri Street 90, Bucharest, Romania.
Saint Petersburg State University, Department of Psychological Ensuring of Professional Activity, 7-9
Universitetskaya Emb., St Petersburg, 199034, Russia.
SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Psychology in Sopot, Department of
Psychology, 81–745 Sopot, ul. Polna 16/20, Poland.
Tilburg University, Departement Tranzo, Professor Cobbenhagenlaan 125, 5037 DB Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Bahcesehir University, Department of Psychology, Guney Yerleskesi, Besiktas, Istanbul, Turkey.
University of Habana, Faculty of Psychology, San Rafael # 1168 e/. Mazón y Baserrate Plaza, Ciudad de La
Habana, Cuba.
Chiang Mai University, Department of Psychology, 239 Suthep, Muang Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai 50200,
Thailand.
50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

Funding
These studies were funded by a Special Research Fund granted to the first and last author (FSR2016) by UCLouvain.
Conflict of Interest Statement
M.M. and I.R. founded the Training Institute for Parental Burnout (TIPB) which delivers
training on PB to professionals. The TIPB was founded after the completion of the study. The
institute did not participate in the funding of this study, nor did it influence the process or the
results in any way.

3

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUTGender equality and maternal burnout: a 40-country study

Abstract
In Western countries, recent decades have witnessed a revolution towards genderequality. Inequalities have been greatly reduced in areas such as education or employment.
Because inequalities lead to distress, this development has largely benefited women. One
notable exception is the realm of parenting, which has remained rife with inequalities even in
the most egalitarian countries. We hypothesized that experiencing inequality in parenting
when one holds egalitarian values and raising a child in a country characterized by a highlevel of gender equality in other areas, increases mothers’ psychological distress in thespecific area of parenting. Multilevel modeling analyses computed among 11,538 mothersfrom 40 countries confirmed this prediction: high egalitarian values at the individual level andhigh gender equality at the societal level are associated with higher burnout levels in mothers.
The associations hold beyond differences in sociodemographic characteristics at theindividual level and beyond economic disparities at the societal level. These findings show
the importance of egalitarian values and gender equality and their paradoxical effect wheninequalities are still present in specific areas as parenting. This study reveals the crucial needto act not only at the micro level but also at the macro level to promote gender equality inparenting and prevent parental burnout.
Keywords: egalitarian values, gender equality paradox, culture, parental burnout, family
policies

Public Significance Statements
This study shows that mothers suffer more from parental burnout when theyexperience inequality but hold egalitarian values and raise their children in a country4Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
characterized by a high level of gender equality. The results suggest that gender equality
backfires on mothers when equality is achieved in many areas such as education,
employment, health and political empowerment, while inequality still prevails in parenthood.
The results point to the need to implement social policies to achieve the same degree ofgender equality in parenthood as in other areas.

5Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
The 1960s marked the beginning of a revolution towards more egalitarian conditionsin Western countries (Inglehart & Norris, 2003). Women have joined men in the labor market,
are entering male professions, and are increasingly being elected to political office (Cotter etal., 2008). By 1979, more than 150 United Nations member states had adopted laws forgender equality in political and public life, and in the specific fields of education, health andwork (Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 1979).
These societal changes parallel changes in individual mentalities towards more egalitarianvalues, i.e., beliefs that men and women should attain a certain degree of equality within bothpublic and private realms of society (McDaniel, 2008). Women now want a career, and men
want to play an active role as fathers (Amato et al., 2003). This progress towards genderequality is beneficial because social inequalities (e.g., income inequalities) have detrimental
consequences on health and cause psychological distress (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2006).
While there is no doubt that progress has been made towards gender equality in publicareas such as education, employment, and even sport (England et al., 2020; Katsarova, 2019),
gender equality may not have spread to the private sphere to the same extent (Hopcroft &McLaughlin, 2012). And there is still one area of particular inequality: parenting (Renk et al.,2003). Even in countries that have achieved higher levels of gender equality regarding
women’s and men’s economic participation, educational attainment, health and politicalempowerment, women still have the majority of duties related to childcare and education(Bianchi et al., 2012; Coltrane, 2000; Fleischmann & de Haas, 2016; Hagqvist et al., 2017;
Musick et al., 2016; Ory, 2016). These inequalities are reinforced by family policies that
continue to designate mothers as the main caregiver, with for example, longer paid parental
leave for mothers than for fathers (Ray et al., 2010).
On the grounds of previous evidence that parental burnout is more prevalent incountries scoring high on cultural individualism (Roskam et al., 2021), and that having more
6

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
children was associated with higher depression for women, but not for men, in high genderequality countries (Hopcroft & McLaughlin, 2012), we formulated the following hypothesis.
Experiencing inequality in parenting when one holds egalitarian values or raising a child in acountry characterized by a high level of gender equality in most areas except parenting,increases mothers’ psychological distress in the parental role. What is the rationale for thisassumption? Here, we put forward three explanations which are not mutually exclusive:
unfulfilled expectations, social comparison processes across cultures, and the cost-value ratioof the child, to support our claim.
First, in countries where gender equality in the labor market is most supported bypolicies and laws, expectations that women and men will share equally in the tasks associatedwith family life are higher than in countries where work and family are perceived to be
associated with more gender-specific roles (Hagqvist et al., 2017). But despite achievements
in gender equality in work, women in these egalitarian countries are still expected to takeresponsibility for the home and children. And the norm of good motherhood still includes
being the primary caregiver for children (Hagqvist et al., 2017; Hays, 1996). Women who
experience inequality in parenting but hold egalitarian values or raise a child in a country
characterized by a high level of gender equality in most areas except parenting, therefore
experience a gap between their economic participation, educational attainment and personal
opportunities, where they feel increasingly similar to their male counterparts, and the specificarea of parenthood, where inequality is the rule rather than the exception. Such a gap
contributes to unfulfilled expectations in mothers, a notion conceptualized as a chronic
stressor by Wheaton (1999) and defined as ongoing frustration with structural constraints anda feeling of social role captivity as the goal (i.e. gender quality in the parental role) remains
unreachable. A large longitudinal study in the US showed that unfulfilled expectations inareas such as education, employment, or parenthood are risk factors for depression even after7

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, family background, and prior mental healthindicators (Mossakowski, 2011).
A second complementary avenue to explain why experiencing inequality in parenting
when one holds egalitarian values or raising a child in a country characterized by a high levelof gender equality in most areas except parenting may paradoxically increase mothers’
psychological distress in the parental role, is based on social comparison processes acrosscultures. In particular, cultures differ in their use of gender-related social comparisons (Yuki,
2003). While between-gender social comparisons are mostly used in Western societies (i.e.
those scoring high on gender equality), within-gender comparisons more frequently occur in
non-Western societies (i.e. those scoring low on gender equality) (Guimond et al., 2007). As aresult, mothers belonging to more egalitarian societies are more likely to compare themselvesto fathers, and therefore suffer more from gender inequality in parenting than mothers fromless egalitarian societies, who by contrast compare themselves more readily to other mothers,
and will therefore be less at risk of parental burnout.
The value of the child in traditional versus developed societies is a third possible
explanation for our hypothesis. The value attached to children has evolved throughout history
and also differs from one culture to another. This value can be economic (e.g., children
provide security for parents in old age), psychological (e.g., children are companions for theirparents and a source of affection), or social (e.g., having children gives an identity andvaluable social roles) (Kagitcibasi & Ataca, 2005). While in traditional societies, theeconomic, psychological, and social value associated with children are still important, it has
decreased in developed societies – a phenomenon that has been related to declining fertility(Caldwell, 1982; Kagitçibasi, 2007; Kagitcibasi & Ataca, 2005).

8

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
It could even be argued that children are a burden for some parents in developed
Western societies (Hopcroft & McLaughlin, 2012). According to some scholars, Westerncountries have entered the era of what Hays called “intensive parenting”, a child-centered,expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive approach toparenting (Hays, 1996). In countries where parenting is subject to high norms and standards
and multiple recommendations about food, sleep, play, communication, and so on, children
can be a real source of economic stress, because providing them with quality food, enrollingthem in the best schools, and offering them stimulating and varied extracurricular activities
are all expensive.
Beyond the economic cost, intensive parenting also has a psychological cost. It is forexample strongly recommended that parents control their emotions in the presence of thechild. They are strongly encouraged to display positive emotions such as showing pride to thechild, but also to control negative emotions such as anger. The control of emotions by theparent has been shown to have very positive effects on child development (e.g. Chen et al.,2019), but it has a significant psychological cost for the parent (Karnilowicz et al., 2019; Le &Impett, 2016). This cost linked to emotional labor is well known in organizational psychology(e.g., Grandey et al., 2013) and has also been highlighted recently in the field of parenthoodby Lin et al. (2021). Parents are conscious of emotional display rules and therefore attempt tocontrol their emotions, and these efforts are in turn associated with a risk of parental burnout.
Lastly, the social value of the child can also be diminished for women holding
egalitarian values, and in countries characterized by a high level of gender equality. In asociety where women have more similar opportunities as men for education, professional
positions, and leisure activities, being a mother is less necessary to have a social identity. The
parental identity is one possible identity among others. And it can even become a burden if

9Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
balancing different identities, for example professional and parental identities, proves difficultand stressful (Hopcroft & McLaughlin, 2012).
In order to test our main hypothesis, the ranking of 40 countries on gender equality
was obtained. In these 40 countries, data were collected from 11,538 mothers to assess theiregalitarian values and one particular form of psychological distress related to parenting:parental burnout, a condition characterized by a feeling of exhaustion in parenting, anemotional distancing from one’s children, a loss of pleasure and efficacy in one’s parentalrole, and a contrast between previous and current parental self (Mikolajczak et al., 2019;
Roskam et al., 2021). The aim of this study was to test the relation with parental burnout of
mothers’ egalitarian values and countries’ level of gender equality.
MethodParticipants
A sample of 11,538 mothers (M = 38.09, SD = 8.08, range: 18-88) from 40
age

age

countries was drawn from a larger database (including both genders) collected by theInternational Investigation of Parental Burnout (IIPB) Consortium between December 2017and December 2019 (see Procedure below). Mothers were eligible to participate if they met
the inclusion criterion of still having at least one child living at home. The sociodemographic
characteristics of the pooled sample and of the sample in each country (sample size, age,educational level, working status, family types, number of children in the household, age ofyoungest child, age of oldest child, number of women and men living in household and caring
for the children every day, years spent in the country, hours spent with children every day,and neighborhood profiles) are detailed in Table 1.
Insert Table 1 about here
Procedure

10Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
The data were collected through the International Investigation of Parental Burnout(IIPB) Consortium. The IIPB Consortium was set up by the first and last authors of thecurrent study in 2017. They aimed to include in the consortium the widest possible range ofcountries in terms of geographical location, cultural values and socio-economic level. The
countries involved in the IIPB used a common protocol which was translated usingtranslation/back-translation procedures led by the consortium members and coordinated by
the first author (for more information about the IIPB Consortium, see Roskam et al., 2021).
The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board both at UCLouvain and in eachcountry. Ethics approvals in each country are presented in Table S1.
Data were collected from January 2018 to March 2020. To avoid (self-)selection bias,
mothers were not aware that the study focused on parental burnout. The survey was presented
as a study designed to improve understanding of parental satisfaction and exhaustion aroundthe world. After giving their informed consent, participants were invited to complete thequestionnaire anonymously, but had the option of discontinuing their participation at any
stage without justifying their withdrawal. The presentation of the survey (i.e., paper andpencil, or online) and the data collection procedure (newspaper advertisement, word of mouth,
social networks, door-to-door, etc.) varied from country to country according to local
practices. For a summary of the data collection procedure in each country, see Table S2.
Measures
In addition to demographic measures, the common IIPB protocol included several
measures addressing different research questions and goals (e.g., comparing the prevalence ofparental burnout across countries; investigating the relations between parental burnout andperceived/ideal parental self-discrepancies; examining the contribution of different parental
duties to parental burnout). Because these questions are too different to be addressed in thesame article, only the measures used in the current paper are described below.
11Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Individual Level
Sociodemographic characteristics. Participants were first asked about: their age;
their educational level [number of successfully completed school years from the age of 6];
working status [in paid work or not]; family types [two-parent family; single parent family,
step-family; others (e.g. polygamous family, two same-sex parents, multigenerationalfamily)]; the number of children living in the household; the age of the youngest and theoldest child; the number of women (e.g. co-wife, grandmother, nanny, helper, etc.) living in
the household/direct entourage and caring for the children on a daily basis (including theparticipant herself); the number of men (e.g. grandfather, uncle, etc.) living in thehousehold/direct entourage and caring for the children on a daily basis; the number of hours
they spent with the children per day (excluding nighttime hours), and neighborhood profile[disadvantaged; average; prosperous].
Parental burnout. Parental burnout was assessed with the Parental Burnout
Assessment (PBA, Roskam et al., 2018), a 23-item questionnaire assessing the four core
symptoms of parental burnout: emotional exhaustion (9 items) (e.g., I feel completely run
down by my role as a parent), contrast with previous parental self (6 items) (e.g., I tell myself
I’m no longer the parent I used to be), loss of pleasure in one’s parental role (5 items) (e.g., I
don’t enjoy being with my children) and emotional distancing from one’s children (3 items)(e.g., I am no longer able to show my children that I love them) using a 7-point frequency
scale (never, a few times a year, once a month or less, a few times a month, once a week, a
few times a week, every day).
Egalitarian values. Egalitarian values toward gender roles at the individual level were
measured by four androgynist items selected by Constantin and Voicu (2015) from two largescale surveys used in cross-cultural research: the International Social Survey Programme(ISSP) 2002 and the World Values Survey (WVS) 2005. The items (i.e., Men ought to do a12

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
larger share of childcare than they do now; Having a job is the best for a woman to be an
independent person; Both the man and woman should contribute to the household income;Men ought to do a larger share of household work than they do now) were scored using a 7point frequency scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
Societal Level
Gender equality. Gender equality was measured by referring to The Global Gender
Gap Report 2018 (World Economic Forum, 2018) which scores 144 countries from zero(imparity) to one (parity) according to their gender equality situation on four dimensions:
economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, andpolitical empowerment. This index thus captures gender equality in all the most important
areas, except for parenting, and is therefore unbiased by inequalities in parenting. For the 40
countries involved in the current study, gender equality ranged from .546 (Pakistan) to .823
(Finland). Gender equality indices in each country can be found in Table 2 for the 40
countries.
Gross Domestic Product per capita. The Gross Domestic Product per capita (GDPper capita) (current US$) was measured as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) divided by
midyear population. GDP is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in theeconomy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the
products (The World Bank, 2018). For the 40 countries, values ranged from 271.75 (Burundi)
to 86,429.5 (Switzerland). They are displayed in Table 2 for the 40 countries.
Insert Table 2 about here
Statistical Analyses
Using the IIPB database containing data from 42 countries worldwide (N = 17,409,
Roskam et al., 2021), participants meeting the inclusion criteria were selected for the present
study: (i) mothers with at least one child still living in the family home (ii) who had
13Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
completed the measures of interest, namely the sociodemographic variables, the parental
burnout questionnaire, and the egalitarian values questionnaire (iii) from countries for which
the variables at the societal level could be retrieved (nmothers= 11,538 ; ncountries= 40).

The measurement invariance of the PBA had been tested and demonstrated in the IIPB
seminal paper (Roskam et al., 2021) and this analysis was therefore not repeated here.
However, the validity of the model of interest, i.e. 23 observed variables, 4 first-order factors,(Emotional Exhaustion, Emotional Distancing, Feelings of Being Fed Up, and Contrast), andone second-order factor (Parental Burnout), was tested in our sample. A confirmatory
factorial analysis (CFA) was computed using maximum likelihood (ML) estimation and theSatorra-Bentler correction, i.e. Stata option vce(sbentler) (Satorra & Bentler, 1991; Satorra &Bentler, 1994) in Stata (StataCorp, 2019) to account for deviations from normality (Kline,2015). The validity of the scale measuring egalitarian values (Constantin & Voicu, 2015) was
then tested on the pooled sample. A CFA using ML as the method of estimation and thevce(sbentler) Stata option was run. The model of interest contained four observed variables
and one latent variable, i.e. Egalitarian Values. The measurement invariance was tested acrossthe 21 languages. As with PBA in Roskam et al. (2021), this strategy was chosen so as not to
exclude from the research countries with small sample sizes in which it was not possible totest the model. We wanted to avoid the risk of excluding countries in which data collection ismore demanding and which are by definition less represented in the scientific literature.
Gathering the subsamples according to the versions of the questionnaire, i.e. by language,
allowed us to include a large number of countries in the analysis and research. First, themodel of interest was estimated in each language separately. Second, configural invariance,
implying the same pattern of latent constructs and observed items, with all parameters
allowed to vary across groups, was tested. Next, metric equivalence where the factor loadings
were constrained to be equal across groups was tested. This level of invariance corresponded
14

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
to the minimum level to be reached in this study, in which the main multilevel analysis wasinterested in the regression coefficients between variables and not in the comparisons of theaverage levels of these variables between groups, which would require scalar invariance.
Several goodness-of-fit indices were used to determine the acceptability of the models: chisquare statistics, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the standardized root
mean square residual (SRMR), the comparative fit index (CFI), and the Tucker-Lewis index(TLI). For CFI and TLI, values close to 0.90 or greater are acceptable to good. RMSEA and
SRMR should preferably be less than or equal to 0.08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999). For
measurement invariance across a large number of groups (> 20), change in χ2 was reported
and a criterion of a change in CFI of -.02 , paired with a change in RMSEA of .02, was used
(Cheung & Rensvold, 2002; Rutkowski & Svetina, 2014).
Regarding the main analyses, the bivariate associations between egalitarian values andparental burnout at the individual level, and between gender equality and parental burnout at
the societal level, were first examined, as well as the cross-level bivariate correlation between
egalitarian values and gender equality. At both levels, we checked for the presence of outliers.
For the second main analysis, the multilevel random coefficient modeling analysis in Stata 16
was used to take the nested structure of the data into account. This analysis examined whether
egalitarian values and gender equality continued to be related to mothers’ parental burnout
over and above their sociodemographic characteristics.
Next, the unconditional model was run. The individual- and societal-level variables
were then entered in three steps. Conditional Model 1 controlled for sociodemographic
variables. The egalitarian values measured at the individual level were entered in Conditional
Model 2. Conditional Model 3 controlled for economic inequalities across countries. Genderequality obtained at the societal level as well as the interaction term between egalitarianvalues and gender equality were entered in Conditional Model 3.
15

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUTFor the readability of the multilevel modeling results, the estimates of the standard
deviation between () and within countries ( ) were translated into R as the percentage of
2variance explained by the covariates considered in each of the three conditional models.
Following the recommendation of Raudenbush and Bryk (2002), the proportional reduction ineach of the variance components was considered separately.

, referring to the percentage of

explained variance between countries, was computed with the formula=is the between-countries variance estimated under the unconditional model and, whereis thebetween-countries variance estimated under the model of interest (i.e. Conditional Models 1to 3).

, referring to the percentage of explained variance within countries, was computedwith the formula=where θ is the within-countries variance estimated under the0

unconditional model and θ is the within-countries variance estimated under the model of1interest (i.e. Conditional Models 1 to 3).
All syntax is available athttps://osf.io/g5k7q/?view_only=bea4a7854a314b399cbfbb483237f75d .
Results
Preliminary Analyses
The CFA performed on the PBA in the pooled sample (N = 11,538) displayed a good
fit to the data, SB-χ (223) = 7978.94, p < .001, CFI_SB= .93, TLI = 92, RMSEA_SB = .055,
2

SRMR = .042. The standardized factor loadings ranged from .66 to .84. The model of theegalitarian values in the pooled sample could not be estimated in the pooled sample (N =11,538). The computation of the model in each language group showed that the model did notconverge for the Basque version. The Basque group (n = 121) was removed and the CFAs
were run successfully. The sample of 11,417 mothers was considered for the subsequent
analyses. The CFA performed on the egalitarian values questionnaire in the pooled sample

16

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
displayed a good fit to the data, SB-χ (1) = 2.97, p = .085, CFI_SB = 1.00, TLI = .99,
2

RMSEA_SB = .013, SRMR = .002. The standardized factor loadings ranged from .46 to .63.
The model fit indices for the models of the egalitarian values in each language are displayedin Table S3. They demonstrated a very good fit to the data except for the Urdu version, forwhich the CFI and the SRMR were good whereas the TLI and the RMSEA were outside theacceptable parameters. Again with a view to including as many subsamples as possible in the
study, and given that two fit indices were good, the data collected with the Urdu version were
kept in the further analyses.
With regard to measurement invariance across languages, the model fit indices for theconfigural model were good χ (20) = 32.23, p = .041, CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .03,
2

SRMR = .01. The model fit indices for the metric model were also good, χ (77) = 177.06, p <2.001, CFI = .99, TLI = 99, RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .06, and the expected metric invariance
was reached, Δ S-Bχ (57) = 144.83, ΔRMSEA = .016, ΔCFI = .008. The model fit indices for2

the scalar model were outside the acceptable parameters, χ (153) = 2652.91, p < .001, CFI =2.79, TLI = 84, RMSEA = .17 SRMR = .34. However, as indicated above, this level ofinvariance was not needed for the questions/analyses of interest in this paper.
Main Analyses
Spearman's rank correlation between the study variables at the individual level arepresented in Table 3. At the individual level, correlation analyses indicated a significant
positive association between egalitarian values and parental burnout in the pooled sampled (r= .17, p < .001). The partial correlations between egalitarian values and parental burnout at
the individual level accounting for sociodemographic characteristics for each country aredisplayed in Table 4. As shown, the pattern of correlations is not homogeneous. Positive low
to moderate associations ranging from .10 to .33 were observed in most of the countries (n =27). However, we found very low associations (<.10) for 5 other countries, i.e., Burundi,
17

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
China, Spain, Turkey, and Vietnam. Seven other countries displayed correlations close tozero, i.e. Algeria, Argentina, Cuba, Iran, Peru, Thailand, and Uruguay. Pakistan was identified
as an outlier with r = -.27, and was therefore excluded from the multilevel analyses.
Insert Tables 3 and 4 about here
At the societal level, we found a significant association between gender equality andparental burnout (r = .34, p < .001). The mean level of parental burnout in each country is
shown in Table 2. The associations between parental burnout and both egalitarian values andgender equality, were plotted for illustration purposes. As shown in Figure 1 (a), mothers withhigher egalitarian values displayed a higher level of parental burnout than mothers with lower
individual egalitarian values. As shown in Figure 1 (b), the country mean level of mothers’
parental burnout was higher in countries displaying higher gender equality.

Fig. 1. Scatter plots of the bivariate association between egalitarian values and parental burnout at the individuallevel (a) and gender equality and parental burnout at the country level (b).

The examination of the graph at the societal level suggests the presence of outliers. In
order to identify them, we estimated the standardized residuals. Four countries, i.e. Egypt,Cuba, Poland, Thailand, had residuals >2 and were therefore excluded from the multilevel
analyses.
18

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Finally, the cross-level bivariate correlation between egalitarian values and genderequality was also found to be significant (r = .11 p < .001).
Multilevel Analyses
We first explored how much parental burnout varied at Level 1 (within countries, i.e.,
between mothers) and at Level 2 (between countries). The mean level of parental burnout
estimated in 10,502 mothers nested in 35 countries was 27.50, and varied more withincountries (i.e., between mothers), sd = 25.96, than between countries, sd = 7.23. The findingsof the multilevel random coefficient model (Table 5) showed that both egalitarian values at
the individual level and gender equality at the societal level were significantly predictive ofparental burnout beyond sociodemographic variables at the individual level, and beyond
economic inequalities across countries at the societal level. In terms of sociodemographic
predictors, a significant effect of working status was found: being in paid work was aprotective factor with regard to parental burnout. Also, the number of children was positively
related to the level of parental burnout. Parents having children at younger age displayed asignificantly higher level of parental burnout. The number of men involved in childcare was aprotective factor against mothers’ burnout, as was living in a more prosperous neighborhood.
The sociodemographic variables accounted for 2.06% of the variance within countries, whichis in line with previous results of independent studies using large samples of participantsoriginating from different cultures around the globe (e.g. Arikan et al., 2020; Gannagé et al.,2020; Matias et al., 2020; Mikolajczak et al., 2018; Mousavi et al., 2020; Stănculescu et al.,2020; Szczygieł et al., 2020). All of these report that sociodemographic characteristics
account for a small proportion of explained variance in interindividual differences in parental
burnout. However, since the sociodemographic characteristics vary not only within countries
but also between countries, our main analysis showed that the sociodemographic variables
accounted for 10.86% of the variance in parental burnout between countries.
19

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUTOver and above these sociodemographic predictors, a significant effect of mothers’
egalitarian values was found. The higher their egalitarian values, the higher their level ofparental burnout. While taking this predictor into account only explains 3.96% of thevariability between mothers within countries (including the variance explained by thecovariates), the addition of this predictor in the second model increased the percentage ofvariance explained to 14.88% of the differences between countries. In the third model, theintroduction of the two variables measured at the country level (i.e. GDP per capita andgender equality) and the cross-level interaction between egalitarian values and gender equality
further increased the percentage of variance explained between countries, bringing it to
50.31%. The effect of our variable of interest, i.e. gender equality, was significant after
controlling for economic inequalities between countries. The cross-level interaction showsthat higher egalitarian values at the individual level increases the risk of parental burnout
slightly more for mothers raising their children in a country characterized by a higher level ofgender equality.
Insert Table 5 about here
Discussion
The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of mothers’ egalitarian values
and societal level of gender equality as risk factors for parental burnout across 40 countries.
The hypothesis we posed may seem counter-intuitive at first sight. It did not seem logical thatmothers who are a priori the least confined in their (traditional) role as mothers and who raise
their children in societies where they are considered the most equal to fathers, are in fact themost at risk of suffering from parental burnout. However, the result, namely that higher levelsof maternal burnout are associated to higher egalitarian values and found in more egalitarian
countries, was not unexpected. It is consistent with previous evidence that parental burnout ismore prevalent in Western culture and that having more children is associated with higher
20

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
depression for women in countries characterized by a high level of gender equality (Hopcroft& McLaughlin, 2012; Roskam et al., 2021). Based on the current study, we cannot rule out
the possibility that the higher level of maternal burnout in more egalitarian countries may bepart of a larger pattern of findings showing a tendency to report more symptoms and negative
states in more egalitarian countries and in more individualistic cultures (Li et al., 2021;
Roskam et al., 2021). This tendency could be driven by lower levels of stigma andmoralization associated with mental health issues, in particular depression, in Westerncountries (Krendl & Pescosolido, 2020).
The current results suggest that the issue of gender equality may be a specific risk
factor for parental burnout in mothers. However, identifying the process at work in therelationship between gender equality and maternal burnout is particularly challenging. Genderequality is a very broad phenomenon that cannot be summarized in a single indicator such as
the Global Gender Gap index (World Economic Forum, 2018). Given the difficulty ofcollecting comparable information across countries on gender equality in the economic,
political, educational, sport, and parental areas, this type of indicator provides the opportunity
to conduct studies on a large number of countries and compare them with each other, but acomparison based on this indicator alone is de facto limited. Nor does it allow us tounderstand the mechanisms at play in the relationships observed. Understanding thesemechanisms is a matter for the researcher's interpretation, based on relevant concepts andtheories.
Here, we used several complementary theoretical arguments regarding the specificeffect of egalitarian values and gender equality on maternal burnout to provide solid
grounding for the study hypothesis. These arguments included unfulfilled expectations, social
comparison processes across culture, and change in the cost-value ratio of the child.
Consistently with our theoretically-based assumption, the results mainly confirmed that21

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
experiencing inequality when one holds egalitarian values and raising a child in a country
characterized by a high level of gender equality in most areas except parenting, contribute toparental burnout in mothers. Moreover, the results revealed an interaction effect between
egalitarian values at the individual level and gender equality at the societal level. This crosslevel interaction suggests that in countries characterized by a high level of gender equality,
holding egalitarian values correlate slightly more strongly with parental burnout.
The theoretical arguments on which we have relied seem convincing, and we believethat unfulfilled expectations, social comparison processes across culture, and the cost-value
ratio of the child, are good candidates as mediators between both gender equality andegalitarian values on the one hand, and parental burnout on the other. Although none of thesepotential mediators were measured in the present study, they are interesting topics for future
research.
The conclusion that experiencing inequality when one holds egalitarian values andraising a child in a country countries characterized by a high level of gender equality are risk
factors for maternal burnout, cannot be considered universal. Indeed, we have identified,among the 40 countries participating in this research, one outlier at the within-country leveland four outliers at the between-country level. We also identified correlation coefficientsclose to zero between egalitarian values and parental burnout in seven countries. Thissuggests that having more egalitarian values as a mother is not a risk factor in all cultures andthat raising children in a country characterized by a high level of gender equality is not
systematically a risk factor for maternal burnout.
In particular, Egypt was the most significant outlier in the societal level analyses.
Mothers reported a very high level of parental burnout while raising their children in acountry with low gender equality. This result reflects the particular situation in this country,

22

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
which is characterized by a large increase in the percentage of women in the labor force.
According to official statistics (Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, 2021),
a high percentage (16%) of Egyptian women are breadwinners. Among them are many
widows and divorcees. The pressure to work is high and women are under even more pressure
because they have to balance work-related responsibilities with those of caring for and raisingchildren, which almost exclusively rely on women even when they raise their children in a
two-parent family. In addition, the gender inequality that prevails in this society, especially ineconomic participation and political empowerment, means that women's professional role isseverely limited. They are restricted in the kind of work they can do. They are also subject todiscrimination when it comes to promotions or the choice of higher positions, for example.
Poland is another country with a significantly higher level of parental burnout thanother countries with the same level of gender equality. In line with previous evidence that thesocial context, in particular the public policies designed to reduce the burden of having
children, plays an essential role in predicting parental well-being (e.g., Pollmann-Schult,2018; Stier & Kaplan, 2020), Szczygieł et al. (2020) suggested that the low formal support
offered to Polish parents explains the high level of parental burnout. A very telling example isthat Poland stands out from many other European countries as regards the availability of earlychildhood education and care (ECEC). In 2017, only 11.6% of children under the age of 3
benefited from ECEC, while the average percentage was 34.2% across European countries(Commission/EACEA/Eurydice., 2019). As mothers are still the primary caregivers in Poland(Plomien, 2009), they are likely to be particularly affected by the lack of formal support. In
addition, the rapid growth of individualistic values in Poland (Brycz et al., 2015) has led to adecrease in the informal support that mothers of previous generations could rely on in a morecollectivist society. For example, there has been a decline in the number of grandparents
involved in caring for their grandchildren in Poland in recent years (Kotowska et al., 2016).
23

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Cuba contrasts very strongly with Poland in our results at the societal level: the levelof parental burnout is extremely low, while the level of gender equality is comparable to thatof Poland. In contrast to Poland, the formal and informal social support that mothers receivein Cuba is very high. On the formal side, the country provides parents with free ECEC andcultural and sports activities for their children. All Cuban mothers, regardless of their social or
economic status, can therefore offer their children a good education and opportunities fordevelopment through the services and facilities available to them. Maternity leave is alsooffered to mothers for one year, but women have the choice to shorten it if they wish to return
to work. On the informal side, parents can rely on the help of grandparents and members of
the community or neighborhood. The role of the mother is highly respected in Cuban society,which recognizes that mothers play an essential role in the development of the child. Mothers
have a very special place in this society. They are venerated in such a way that children have agreat social and psychological value (Caram León, 2005; Díaz Cuellar et al., 2017).
As for Thailand, its position on the regression line shown in Figure 1b might suggestthat the situation there is comparable to that of Cuba. The two countries do indeed common
points, but there are also important differences. Of the 40 countries that participated in the
study, these two countries have the highest rate of intergenerational families, at over 25% (seethe "other" category in Table 1). And according to Thai official statistics (UNFPA, 2015), theproportion of three-generation families increased to 33.6% whereas that of two-parent
families decreased to 26.6% from 1987 to 2013. Cuba and Thailand thus have in common thehigh rate of support that parents find in their family, which may explain the near-to-zero levelof parental burnout in these two countries. However, Cuba and Thailand greatly differ on
gender equality issues. Whereas Cuba can be considered a country where gender equality is
progressing quite homogeneously, the lower (but average) level of gender equality displayedby Thailand may hide a heterogenous situation and represent a compromise between opposing
24Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
trends. Whereas gender equality can be considered as high in educational attainment, healthand survival and to a slightly lesser extent, economic participation, inequality in politicalempowerment remains extremely prevalent (World Economic Forum, 2018). To illustrate
this, there are currently only 76 female MPs in Thailand out of a total of 500, i.e. 14%, only
one female minister (the education minister), and only one female governor. This situation
may be specific to Thailand compared to other Asian countries. The attitude towards genderequality is more homogeneous there: in China or Japan, for example, gender equality is,depending on the index used (World Economic Forum, 2018), weaker, and these values areprogressing slowly but more consistently across domains. The Thai heterogeneity may
explain why the indicator we used here is not a good predictor of the level of maternalburnout and why Thailand was found to be an outlier.
Strengths and Limitations
The strengths of this study are its topic of universal interest to a broad readership
including psychologists, psychiatrists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, healtheconomists and policy makers, the large sample from 40 countries, the participation ofcountries not usually represented in the scientific literature, the complementary use of datafrom international databases independent of the data collected from the participants, and thefact that the nested model controls for differences in socio-demographic, economic andcultural background both at the individual and societal levels. Despite its interesting results,
this study is not exempt from limitations. First, it cannot be asserted that the samples fromwhich the data were collected in the different countries were fully representative of the
populations. In most countries, the samples were convenient and snowball. As is often thecase with questionnaire studies, the participants were relatively highly educated. In addition,
the samples collected in the different countries are probably not equivalent in their nonrepresentativeness. The interpretation of the results must therefore take this limit on generality
25

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
into account. Second, the study found that mothers suffer more from parental burnout when
they hold egalitarian values and are raising their children in a country where gender equality
is high in areas such as education, employment, health and political empowerment, yet
inequality still prevails in parenthood. However, inequalities in parenting have not beeneffectively measured. In the absence of such a measure, the hypothesis and the interpretationof the findings were based on international surveys and empirical research showing a strong
gender imbalance in duties related to childcare and parenting, even in egalitarian countries(Bianchi et al., 2012; Coltrane, 2000; Fleischmann & de Haas, 2016; Musick et al., 2016; Ory,2016). Third, the study would have benefited from the inclusion of a measure of task-sharing
between mother and father, since if mothers suffer from parental burnout when they holdegalitarian values but inequalities prevail in parenting, this effect will be explained and/or
amplified by low task-sharing with fathers.
Conclusion
Despite increasingly egalitarian ideologies and huge progress towards higher genderequality in areas such as education, employment, healthcare and political empowerment,
parenting has remained a strongly gendered area. Burnout seems to be the price to pay forinequality in the specific area of parenting. Given the deleterious consequences of parental
burnout for both parents and their children, our findings suggest that social changes areneeded to boost gender equality in parenthood. The exhaustion of egalitarian mothers isregrettable, because in essence, gender equality is truly beneficial for both women and men.
Social policies must be implemented to achieve higher degree of gender equality inparenthood as in other areas such as education, employment, health and politicalempowerment. If not, mothers’ parental burnout lurks around the corner.

26

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Author Contributions
I.R. and M. M. designed the study. I.R. coordinated the IIPB consortium, undertook
data collection, and merged the data sets. L.G. collected the Belgian data, computed
preliminary analyses, and drafted a preliminary version of the paper. I.R. computed theanalyses and wrote the original draft of the paper. M.M. reviewed and edited the paper. All
authors have approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.
ORCID iDs
I.R.: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1449-1133
L.G.: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1651-3129
M.M.: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7333-1578
Open Practices
The study reported in this paper was not preregistered. The anonymized data, materials
and the SPSS syntax are publicly available:
https://osf.io/g5k7q/?view_only=bea4a7854a314b399cbfbb483237f75d.
Supplemental Material
Additional information can be found online at XXX.

27

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT

References
Amato, P. R., Johnson, D. R., Booth, A., & Rogers, S. J. (2003). Continuity and Change inMarital Quality Between 1980 and 2000. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65(1), 122. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.00001.x
Arikan, G., Üstündağ-Budak, A. M., Akgün, E., Mikolajczak, M., & Roskam, I. (2020).
Validation of the Turkish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA). New
Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2020(174), 15-32.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20375
Bianchi, S. M., Sayer, L. C., Milkie, M. A., & Robinson, J. P. (2012). Housework: Who Did,
Does or Will Do It, and How Much Does It Matter? Social forces; a scientific mediumof social study and interpretation, 91(1), 55-63. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sos120
Brycz, H., Rózycka-Tran, J., & Szczepanik, J. (2015). Cross-cultural differences inmetacognitive self. Economics and Sociology, 8, 127-134.
https://doi.org/10.14254/2071-789x.2015/8-1/12
Caldwell, J. C. (1982). Theory of fertility decline. London: Academic Press.
Caram León, T. (2005). Mujer y poder en Cuba. In F. Rojas Aravena (Ed.), La
gobernabilidad en América Latina. Balance reciente y tendencias a futuro. Facultad
Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales.
http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/cuba/flacso/caram.pdf
Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, C. (2021). Egypt statistics.
https://www.capmas.gov.eg/HomePage.aspx
Chen, Y., Haines, J., Charlton, B. M., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2019). Positive parenting
improves multiple aspects of health and well-being in young adulthood. Nature
Human Behaviour, 3(7), 684-691. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0602-x

28

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Cheung, G. W., & Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing
Measurement Invariance. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal,
9(2), 233-255. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5
Coltrane, S. (2000). Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the Social
Embeddedness of Routine Family Work. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62(4),1208-1233. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.01208.x
Commission/EACEA/Eurydice., E. (2019). Key data on early childhood education and carein Europe (Eurydice Report). https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/nationalpolicies/eurydice/sites/eurydice/files/kd_ecec_2019_report_en.pdf
Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, C. (1979).
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women New
York, 18 December 1979. United Nations Human Rights.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cedaw.aspx
Constantin, A., & Voicu, M. (2015). Attitudes towards gender roles in cross-cultural surveys:
Content validity and cross-cultural measurement invariance. Social Indicators
Research, 123(3), 733-751.
Cotter, D. A., Hermsen, J. M., & England, P. (2008). Moms and jobs: Trends in mothers’
employment and which mothers stay home. American families: A multicultural
reader, 2, 379-386.
Díaz Cuellar, F. E., Castro Gutiérrez, E., Mestre Oviedo, J., González Landrián, L., Torres
Cancino, I., & Castro Alonso, M. (2017). La mujer cubana: evolución de derechos ybarreras para asumir puestos de dirección. Revista Médica Electrónica, 39, 1180-1191.
http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S168418242017000500019&nrm=iso29

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUTEngland, P., Levine, A., & Mishel, E. (2020). Progress toward gender equality in the UnitedStates has slowed or stalled. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
117(13), 6990-6997. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1918891117
Fleischmann, F., & de Haas, A. (2016). Explaining parents' school involvement: The role ofethnicity and gender in the Netherlands. The Journal of Educational Research, 109(5),554-565. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2014.994196
Gannagé, M., Besson, E., Harfouche, J., Roskam, I., & Mikolajczak, M. (2020). Parental
burnout in Lebanon: Validation psychometric properties of the Lebanese Arabic
version of the Parental Burnout Assessment. New Directions for Child and Adolescent
Development, 2020(174), 51-65. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20383
Grandey, A. A., Diefendorff, J. M., & Rupp, D. E. (2013). Emotional labor in the 21st
century: Diverse perspectives on emotion regulation at work. New York, NY, US:
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Guimond, S., Branscombe, N. R., Brunot, S., Buunk, A. P., Chatard, A., Désert, M., Garcia,
D. M., Haque, S., Martinot, D., & Yzerbyt, V. (2007). Culture, gender, and the self:
Variations and impact of social comparison processes. Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology, 92(6), 1118-1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1118
Hagqvist, E., Gådin, K. G., & Nordenmark, M. (2017). Work–Family Conflict and WellBeing Across Europe: The Role of Gender Context. Social Indicators Research,132(2), 785-797. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1301-x
Hays, S. (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Hopcroft, R. L., & McLaughlin, J. (2012). Why is the sex gap in feelings of depression wider
in high gender equity countries? The effect of children on the psychological well-30

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
being of men and women. Social Science Research, 41(3), 501-513.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.12.006
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure
analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling,
6, 1-55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
Kagitçibasi, C. (2007). Family, self, and human development across cultures. Theory andapplications. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kagitcibasi, C., & Ataca, B. (2005). Value of Children and Family Change: A Three-DecadePortrait From Turkey. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54(3), 317-337.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2005.00213.x
Karnilowicz, H. R., Waters, S. F., & Mendes, W. B. (2019). Not in front of the kids: Effectsof parental suppression on socialization behaviors during cooperative parent–childinteractions. Emotion, 19(7), 1183-1191. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000527
Katsarova, I. (2019). Gender equality in sport: Getting closer every day.
https://library.olympics.com/Default/doc/SYRACUSE/185927/gender-equality-insport-getting-closer-every-day-ivana-katsarova
Kline, R. B. (2015). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (4th edition).
New York: Guilford publications.
Kotowska, I. E., Matysiak, A., & Mynarska, M. (2016). The life of Poles: From leaving theparental home to retirement. Insights from the generations and gender survey (GGSPL). Warszawa: Institute of Statistics and Demography, Collegium of Economic
Analysis, Warsaw School of Economics.
Krendl, A. C., & Pescosolido, B. A. (2020). Countries and Cultural Differences in the Stigma
of Mental Illness: The East–West Divide. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,
51(2), 149-167. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022119901297
31

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Le, B. M., & Impett, E. A. (2016). The Costs of Suppressing Negative Emotions andAmplifying Positive Emotions During Parental Caregiving. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 42(3), 323-336. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216629122
Li, Z., Wei, A., Palanivel, V., & Jackson, J. C. (2021). A Data-Driven Analysis of
Sociocultural, Ecological, and Economic Correlates of Depression Across Nations.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/00220221211040243
Lin, G.-X., Hansotte, L., Szczygieł, D., Meeussen, L., Roskam, I., & Mikolajczak, M. (2021).
Parenting with a smile: Display rules, regulatory effort, and parental burnout. Journalof Social and Personal Relationships, 38(9), 2701-2721.
https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075211019124
Matias, M., Aguiar, J., César, F., Braz, A. C., Barham, E. J., Leme, V., Elias, L., Gaspar, M.
F., Mikolajczak, M., Roskam, I., & Fontaine, A. M. (2020). The Brazilian–Portuguese
version of the Parental Burnout Assessment: Transcultural adaptation and initial
validity evidence. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2020(174),
67-83. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20374
McDaniel, A. E. (2008). Measuring Gender Egalitarianism: The Attitudinal Difference
between Men and Women. International Journal of Sociology, 38(1), 58-80.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20628319
Mikolajczak, M., Gross, J. J., & Roskam, I. (2019). Parental Burnout: What Is It, and Why
Does It Matter? Clinical Psychological Science, 7(6), 1319-1329.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702619858430
Mikolajczak, M., Raes, M.-E., Avalosse, H., & Roskam, I. (2018). Exhausted parents:
Sociodemographic, child-related, parent-related, parenting and family-functioning
correlates of parental burnout. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(2), 602-614.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0892-4
32

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Mossakowski, K. N. (2011). Unfulfilled expectations and symptoms of depression among
young adults. Social Science and Medicine, 73(5), 729-736.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.021
Mousavi, S. F., Mikolajczak, M., & Roskam, I. (2020). Parental burnout in Iran:
Psychometric properties of the Persian (Farsi) version of the Parental Burnout
Assessment (PBA). New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development,
2020(174), 85-100. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20369
Musick, K., Meier, A., & Flood, S. (2016). How Parents Fare:Mothers’ and Fathers’
Subjective Well-Being in Time with Children. American Sociological Review, 81(5),1069-1095. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122416663917
Ory, B. (2016). Bridging the gender gap at home?
https://demotrends.org/2016/05/03/bridging-the-gender-gap-at-home/
Plomien, A. (2009). Welfare State, Gender, and Reconciliation of Work and Family in
Poland: Policy Developments and Practice in a New EU Member. Social Policy &Administration, 43(2), 136-151. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14679515.2009.00652.x
Pollmann-Schult, M. (2018). Parenthood and Life Satisfaction in Europe: The Role of Family
Policies and Working Time Flexibility. European Journal of Population, 34(3), 387411. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-017-9433-5
Raudenbush, S., & Bryk, A. (2002). Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data
Analysis Methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ray, R., Gornick, J. C., & Schmitt, J. (2010). Who cares? assessing generosity and genderequality in parental leave policy designs in 21 countries. Journal of European Social
Policy, 20(3), 196-216. https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928710364434

33

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Renk, K., Roberts, R., Roddenberry, A., Luick, M., Hillhouse, S., Meehan, C., Oliveros, A.,& Phares, V. (2003). Mothers, Fathers, Gender Role, and Time Parents Spend with
Their Children. Sex Roles, 48(7), 305-315.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022934412910
Roskam, I., Aguiar, J., Akgun, E., Arikan, G., Artavia, M., Avalosse, H., Aunola, K., Bader,M., Bahati, C., Barham, E. J., Besson, E., Beyers, W., Boujut, E., Brianda, M. E.,
Brytek-Matera, A., Carbonneau, N., César, F., Chen, B.-B., Dorard, G., dos Santos
Elias, L. C., Dunsmuir, S., Egorova, N., Favez, N., Fontaine, A.-M., Foran, H., Fricke,J., Furutani, K., Gallée, L., Gannagé, M., Gaspar, M., Godbout, L., Goldenberg, A.,
Gross, J. J., Gurza, M. A., Hall, R., Hashmi, M. A., Hatta, O., Helmy, M., Hoang, T.
V., Huynh, M. T., Kaneza, E., Kawamoto, T., Knezevic, G., Kpassagou, B. L.,
Lazarevic, L. B., Le Vigouroux, S., Lebert-Charron, A., Leme, V., Lin, G.-X.,
MacCann, C., Manrique-Millones, D., Matias, M., Miranda-Orrego, M. I., Miscioscia,
M., Morgades-Bamba, C., Mousavi, S. F., Moutassem-Mimouni, B., Muntean, A.,
Murphy, H., Ndayizigiye, A., Tenkue, J. N., Olderbak, S., Ornawka, S., Osman, F.,
Oyarce-Cadiz, D., Pérez-Díaz, P. A., Petrides, K. V., Pineda-Marin, C., Prandstetter,
K., Prikhidko, A., Ricci, R. T., Salinas-Quiroz, F., Sánchez-Rodríguez, R.,
Sarrionandia, A., Scola, C., Sezibera, V., Silva, P., Simonelli, A., Soenens, B.,
Sorbring, E., Sorkkila, M., Schrooyen, C., Stănculescu, E., Starchenkova, E.,
Szczygiel, D., Tapia, J., Tri, T. M. T., Tremblay, M., Ustundag-Budak, A. M.,
Pacheco, M. V., van Bakel, H., Verhofstadt, L., Wendland, J., Yotanyamaneewong, S.,& Mikolajczak, M. (2021). Parental Burnout Around the Globe: a 42-Country Study.
Affective Science, 2(1), 58-79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-020-00028-4
Roskam, I., Brianda, M. E., & Mikolajczak, M. (2018). A Step Forward in theConceptualization and Measurement of Parental Burnout: The Parental Burnout
34Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Assessment (PBA). Frontiers in Psychology, 9(758).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00758
Rutkowski, L., & Svetina, D. (2014). Assessing the hypothesis of measurement invariance inthe context of large-scale international surveys. Educational and Psychological
Measurement, 74(1), 31-57. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164413498257
Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. (1991). Goodness-of-fit test under IV estimation: Asymptotic
robustness of a NT test statistic. In R. Gutiérrez & M. J. Valderrama (Eds.), Appliedstochastic models and data analysis (pp. 555-567). World Scientific.
Satorra, A., & Bentler, P. M. (1994). Corrections to test statistics and standard errors incovariance structure analysis. In A. von Eye & C. C. Clogg (Eds.), Latent variables
analysis: Applications for developmental research. (pp. 399-419). Sage Publications,Inc.
Stănculescu, E., Roskam, I., Mikolajczak, M., Muntean, A., & Gurza, A. (2020). Parental
burnout in Romania: Validity of the Romanian version of the parental burnout
assessment (PBA-RO). New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development,
2020(174), 119-136. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20384
StataCorp. (2019). Stata Statistical Software: Release 16. In StataCorp LLC.
Stier, H., & Kaplan, A. (2020). Are Children a Joy or a Burden? Individual- and Macro-level
Characteristics and the Perception of Children. European Journal of Population,
36(2), 387-413. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-019-09535-y
Szczygieł, D., Sekulowicz, M., Kwiatkowski, P., Roskam, I., & Mikolajczak, M. (2020).
Validation of the Polish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA). New
Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2020(174), 137-158.
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20385

35

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
The World Bank, W. B. (2018). Gross Domestic Product per capita. Retrived online athttps://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
UNFPA. (2015). State of Thailand population report 2015: Features of Thai families in theera of low fertility and longevity. . https://thailand.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pubpdf/State%20of%20Thailand%20Population%20report%202015Thai%20Family_en.pdf
Wheaton, B. (1999). Social stress. In C. S. Aneshensel & J. C. Phelan (Eds.), Handbook of thesociology of mental health (pp. 277-300). Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. E. (2006). Income inequality and population health: a review
and explanation of the evidence. Social Science and Medicine, 62(7), 1768-1784.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.08.036
World Economic Forum, W. E. F. (2018). The Global Gender Gap Report. Retrieved online
at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2018.pdf
Yuki, M. (2003). Intergroup comparison versus intragroup relationships: A cross-cultural
examination of social identity theory in North American and East Asian culturalcontexts. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(2), 166-183.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1519846

36

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table 1. Sociodemographic Characteristics: Sample Size and Mean Age, Educational Level, Working Status, Family Types, Number of Children
in the Household, Age of the Youngest Child, Age of the Oldest Child, Number of Women Caring for Children, Number of Men Caring forChildren, Hours Spent With Children per Day, Neighborhood Profiles (Standard Deviations are in Parentheses)

99

Canada

230

Chile

369

China

400

Colombia

63

Costa Rica

146

83.3

65.7

17.7

8.3

8.3

50.5

64.2

24.8

7.3

3.7

69.1

84.9

7.3

4.2

3.6

90.5

78.7

11.3

7.9

2.2

69.6

87.3

4.6

5.2

2.9

36.75
(9.51)
37.10(8.89)
34.14(6.73)
35.85(5.70)
37.95(3.97)-

11.04(4.85)
14.11(3.03)
16.01(2.73)
17.80(3.32)
10.20(2.93)
-

54.8

82.8

17.2

0.0

0.0

67.7

73.5

17.4

2.0

7.1

85.2

82.6

8.3

8.3

0.9

73.4

71.0

12.7

7.1

9.2

87.3

83.8

4.3

1.5

10.5

81.0

57.1

27.0

4.8

11.1

35.72
(6.73)

17.01(4.35)

78.8

71.2

8.9

6.8

13.1

37

2.57
(1.50)
2.18(1.10)
1.80(0.95)
1.58(0.82)
2.10(0.94)
1.52(0.72)

6.48(7.07)
10.49(8.38)
8.15(6.99)
2.39(3.82)
5.25(5.45)
8.68(7.37)

11.77(9.92)
13.78(9.81)
11.87(7.44)
4.23(4.93)
8.78(6.83)
10.85(7.81)

1.67(1.10)
1.66(0.99)
1.06(0.54)
1.07(0.36)
1.20(0.66)
1.21(0.53)

1.47(1.02)
1.08(0.74)
0.87(0.68)
0.96(0.40)
0.97(0.55)
1.01(0.50)

10.62(6.74)
11.05(5.35)
7.25(3.73)
11.02(4.91)
5.73(3.35)
6.73(5.05)

3.66(2.01)
3.70(2.54)
2.15(0.87)
1.83(1.41)
1.48(0.60)
1.54(0.78)
1.51(0.71)

5.22(5.38)
5.64(6.25)
3.83(4.42)
4.18(3.39)
10.86(4.05)
7.97(7.13)
6.70(6.74)

13.13(8.32)
14.13(8.79)
7.31(6.08)
7.78(6.46)
14.05(3.57)
12.13(8.27)
8.00(7.45)

1.68(1.22)
1.68(1.26)
1.03(0.45)
1.54(0.81)
1.72(0.87)
1.51(0.78)
1.54(0.81)

1.29(0.98)
1.07(0.89)
0.97(0.41)
0.96(0.58)
1.50(0.79)
0.86(0.80)
1.07(0.65)

7.38(4.88)
9.90(5.55)
9.11(6.72)
11.00(7.48)
4.24(2.70)
7.83(6.28)
10.90(6.66)% prosperous

Cameroun

34.4% average

93

0% disadvantaged

Burundi1.6

Hours with children

175

64.0

Number of men caring for children

Brazil56.6

Number of women caring forchildren

1358

13.86
(4.74)
17.10(3.83)
13.13(2.78)
13.16(2.90)
16.60
(2.61
16.26
(3.66)

Age of the oldest child

Belgium

38.94(9.99)
40.04(9.55)
44.95(8.28)
33.19(5.71)
38.12(7.10)
41.12(8.41)

Age of the youngest child

165

Other

Austria

Step-family

109

Single parent family

Australia

Two parent family

96

Working status (% paid work)

Argentina

Educational level

189

Age

Sample size

Algeria

Neighborhood
profilesNumber of children in thehousehold

Family types

4.2

84.1

11.6

2.1

72.9

25.0

4.6

77.1

18.3

1.8

70.9

27.3

2.9

47.8

49.3

16.1

66.7

17.2

23.2

51.2

25.6

18.2

72.7

9.1

7.4

61.3

31.3

2.4

59.3

38.2

4.0

91.0

5.0

4.8

63.5

31.7

3.4

67.8

28.8

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Cuba

138

Ecuador

90

Egypt

150

Finland1567

France908

Germany

135

Iran

223

Italy

250

Japan

250

Lebanon135

Netherlands

135

Pakistan

100

Peru

198

Poland325

Portugal

204

Romania

195

Russia263

Serbia

153

Spain

337

Sweden662

Switzerland

271

Thailand202

Turkey

269

UK

163

40.04
(10.32)
31.87(6.95)
46.83(5.57)
36.36(6.41)
37.28(7.66)
34.96(7.61)

13.86(3.12)
16.83(2.92)
10.81(3.43)
17.72(3.32)
15.13(2.71)
13.62(4.44)

78.2
6
81.1

47.1

12.3

15.2

25.4

61.1

15.6

6.7

16.7

1.33

73.3

18.0

0.7

8.0

73.9

78.4

9.4

9.2

3.0

80.6

75.4

13.6

9.0

1.2

69.6

72.6

15.6

6.7

5.2

38.28
(7.89)
42.14(8.26)
53.25(15.68)36.33(8.58)
36.75(7.11)
48.44(10.47)39.00(9.53)
32.97(5.31)
39.50(7.12)
35.90(4.94)
33.68(6.51)
37.72(5.48)
40.14(8.11)
40.36(4.68)
39.80(6.41)
42.07(5.27)
36.68(6.52)
37.55(7.04)

13.60(3.35)
15.26(3.94)
13.58(2.38)
16.27(3.69)
16.74(2.39)
11.95(3.98)
15.05(4.93)
17.84(3.35)
15.86(3.09)
17.21(2.57)
14.35(4.39)
14.92(5.22)
14.87(4.28)
15.60(3.07)
16.29(3.48)
3.29(1.03)
13.75(3.62)
16.00(3.22)

40.4

86.6

9.4

2.2

1.8

83.2

86.4

5.6

4.0

4.0

40.8

71.6

13.6

2.0

12.8

52.6

92.6

5.9

0.7

0.7

93.3

88.1

5.2

3.7

3.0

40.4

71.9

12.4

2.3

13.5

79.8

62.6

19.2

6.1

12.1

66.5

86.2

6.5

3.1

4.3

89.1

88.1

3.5

5.9

2.5

85.1

88.7

4.6

3.1

3.6

77.9

75.3

9.1

8.4

7.2

83.7

92.2

3.9

0

3.9

73.4

78.1

9.9

6.0

6.0

86.7

75.2

10.3

8.8

5.7

98.6

79.0

14.0

6.3

0.7

96.0

70.9

2.5

1.0

25.6

79.2

87.3

6.3

0.4

6.0

77.3

89.6

8.0

1.8

0.6

38

1.48
(.60)
1.62
(0.71)
3.05(1.37)
2.24(1.26)
1.86(0.83)
1.78(0.93)

11.06(8.14)
6.49(4.41)
14.74(6.38)
4.17(4.21)
5.67(5.44)
4.67(4.81)

14.82(9.46)
8.29(6.52)
25.06(5.43)
7.59(5.34)
9.07(6.94)
7.83(6.93)

1.67(0.80)
2.04(1.13)
1.39(1.06)
0.91(0.37)
1.40(1.10)
1.03(0.46)

1.15(0.73)
1.42(0.97)
1.25(1.02)
0.87(0.44)
0.95(0.65)
0.84(0.52)

11.82(4.68)
8.48(5.40)
8.93(4.06)
7.91(3.76)
8.60(5.34)
8.43(4.18)

10.9

60.1

29.0

1.1

73.3

25.6

6.7

68.7

24.7

0.0

99.9

0.1

3.2

58.3

38.5

4.4

76.3

19.3

1.72
(0.71)
1.77(0.72)
1.51(0.71)
2.19(1.01)
1.74(0.71)
4.73(2.89)
1.96(1.10)
1.66(0.98)
1.71(0.76)
1.59(0.62)
1.68(0.79)
1.59(0.65)
1.75(0.83)
2.14(0.95)
2.00(0.83)
1.83(0.69)
1.65(0.62)
1.78(0.75)

9.44(7.63)
8.48(6.66)
13.64(11.71)
8.14(6.26)
4.07(4.80)
12.81(8.16)
7.98(7.25)
3.50(4.05)
6.01(5.36)
3.45(3.90)
4.02(3.94)
4.02(4.30)
6.88(6.93)
6.32(4.66)
6.46(4.85)
9.18(3.79)
4.03(3.04)
5.23(5.30)

13.99(9.12)
11.85(8.54)
23.38(15.45)
10.90(8.03)
6.29(6.30)
20.38(10.61)
12.28(8.74)
4.87(4.70)
9.00(7.43)
6.27(4.93)
7.94(6.16)
6.56(5.58)
9.80(8.28)
11.88(6.07)
9.00(5.84)
12.55(5.00)
7.46(5.63)
7.44(6.39)

1.13(0.44)
1.14(0.56)
1.10(0.35)
1.21(0.51)
1.55(1.09)
2.54(1.48)
1.97(1.21)
1.21(0.89)
1.01(0.48)
1.39(0.76)
1.27(0.64)
1.19(0.63)
1.37(1.11)
1.02(0.53)
1.12(0.58)
1.81(1.00)
1.15(0.53)
1.04(0.27)

0.98(0.37)
1.02(0.42)
0.74(0.52)
1.00(0.35)
1.09(0.58)
2.21(1.38)
1.35(1.15)
0.93(0.61)
0.88(0.37)
1.07(0.63)
1.02(0.59)
1.00(0.53)
1.00(0.60)
1.02(0.56)
0.93(0.53)
1.43(0.79)
1.03(0.41)
0.94(0.48)

7.68(3.48)
8.23(5.51)
6.36(4.84)
8.21(3.28)
6.87(3.00)
8.31(6.38)
9.45(5.80)
9.38(4.91)
5.44(3.23)
9.14(7.26)
9.04(5.43)
8.56(5.08)
11.52(7.14)
6.48(3.16)
6.91(4.36)
6.32(3.69)
6.07(2.97)
7.79(4.18)

11.7

56.6

31.7

2.0

76.0

22.0

1.2

86.0

12.8

4.4

71.9

23.7

3.0

50.4

46.6

25.8

61.3

12.9

6.1

65.2

28.8

3.1

76.3

20.6

1.0

63.9

35.1

1.5

21.5

76.9

0.4

60.5

39.2

2.0

47.1

51.0

5.8

79.3

14.9

4.8

74.2

20.9

0.4

49.8

49.8

1.0

50.2

48.8

5.2

75.1

19.7

4.9

47.2

47.9

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Uruguay

188

USA

272

Vietnam143

PooledSample11,53834.32(5.81)
36.92(8.28)
35.77(6.28)
38.09(8.08)

13.23(4.76)
15.77(3.55)
14.01(4.21)
15.32(4.18)

86.7

73.3

15.5

4.3

6.9

72.1

70.2

18.4

6.3

5.2

93.6

78.3

2.9

0.7

18.1

76.8

77.7

10.3

6.1

1.5

39

1.59
(0.73)
1.93(1.01)
1.72(1.05)
1.96(1.10)

2.79(1.71)
6.13(5.39)
5.01(5.79)
6.24(6.60)

6.15(4.77)
10.18(7.12)
7.94
(.86)
9.79
(7.89)

1.49(0.79)
1.15(0.68)
1.40(0.86)
1.27(0.80)

1.03(0.62)
0.90(0.71)
1.18(0.72)
1.02(0.65)

12.64(5.51)
7.84(4.92)
5.26(3.1487.90(5.07)

3.2

71.8

25.0

7.4

71.3

21.3

3.5

40.4

56.0

3.9

68.7

78.4

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT

Table 2. Country Mean Level of Parental Burnout, Gender Equality, GDP per capita for EachCountry.

Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
BelgiumBrazilBurundiCameroon
CanadaChile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Ecuador
Egypt
FinlandFranceGermany
Iran
Italy
Japan
Lebanon
Pakistan
Peru
PolandPortugal
Romania
RussiaSerbiaSpain
SwedenSwitzerland
ThailandThe Netherlands
TurkeyUK
UruguayUSA
VietnamParentalBurnout
20.81
20.73
30.00
22.79
38.91
20.41
34.41
18.09
32.35
31.59
11.51
19.38
30.99
6.95
21.08
42.58
32.67
32.34
26.96
16.84
18.28
15.69
20.44
16.27
21.5
42.47
24.90
26.61
30.47
21.50
30.80
21.03
36.21
6.20
21.24
12.41
29.63
13.43
30.33
15.51

GenderEquality
.629
.732
.730
.718
.739
.681
.755
.689
.769
.704
.674
.729
.727
.745
.724
.608
.823
.778
.776
.583
.692
.657
.596
.546
.719
.728
.732
.708
.696
.730
.746
.822
.755
.694
.737
.627
.770
.710
.718
.698

GDP per
capita4153.9611633.50
57354.9651453.15
47554.75
9151.45271.751534.4946454.74
15888.14
9976.686729.58
12468.58
8824.196295.932537.1350013.29
41526.41
47787.16
3598.4834608.68
39159.428012.541482.216957.7915468.41
23551.05
12398.98
11287.36
7252.430374.52
54589.06
86429.50
7296.8853018.63
9453.20
42992.80
18703.86
63064.42
2566.45

40

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table 3. Partial Correlations between Egalitarian Values and Parental Burnout at the
Individual Level Accounting for Sociodemographic Characteristics for Each Country.
Country
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
BelgiumBrazilBurundiCameroon
CanadaChile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba
Ecuador
Egypt
FinlandFranceGermany
Iran
Italy
Japan
LebanonNetherlands
Pakistan
Peru
PolandPortugal
Romania
RussiaSerbiaSpain
SwedenSwitzerland
ThailandTurkeyUK
UruguayUSA
VietnamPooled sample

r
-.05
-.05
.19
.10
.18
.30
.02
.13
.18
.09
.03
.11
.11
-.03
.19
.28
.14
.14
.22
-.01
.14
.17
.33
.13
-.27
-.01
.21
.18
.23
.25
.20
.03
.18
.17
-.01
.06
.24
-.03
.11
.04
.15

R
.48
.00
.04
.01
.03
.09
.00
.02
.03
.01
.00
.01
.01
.00
.04
.08
.02
.02
.05
.00
.02
.03
.11
.02
.07
.00
.04
.03
.05
.06
.04
.00
.03
.03
.00
.00
.06
.00
.01
.00
.02
2

p
.00
.66
.06
.24
<.001
.09
.88
.21
.01
.07
.61
.19
.19
.77
.09
.001
<.001
<.001
.02
.89
.03
.01
<.001
.18
.20
.89
<.001
.02
.001
<.001
.02
.59
<.001
.01
.94
.34
.002
.70
.08
.70
<.001

Note. The r coefficient estimates the correlation that would be observed between parental burnout and egalitarianvalues if the sociodemographic characteristics did not vary. The R is the decrease in the model’s R value that
results from removing egalitarian values from the full model.
2

41

2

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table 4. Spearman's Rank Correlation between the Study Variables at the Individual Level.

(1) Parental burnout(2) Age(3) Educational level(4) Neighborhood(5) Working status(6) Number of children in the household(7) Family types(8) Age of the youngest child(9) Number of women caring for children(10) Number of men caring for children(11) Hours with children(12) Egalitarian values

(1)
-.11
.15
-.01
.05
.14
.01
-.19
-.08
-.09
.04
.17

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)

(11)

-.02
.05
-.08
.19
.08
.66
-.07
-.11
-.27
.05

.12
-.18
.01
-.08
-.19
-.07
-.07
-.02
.17

-.10
.01
-.06
-.02
.05
.03
-.07
.06

.05
.00
-.06
-.07
-.03
.35
-.17

.01
.00
-.02
.05
.03
-.03

.19
.15
-.18
-.04
.08

.00
-.08
-.34
.00

.45
-.01
.02

-.00
-.08

-.06

42

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table 5. Results of Multilevel Random Coefficient Model Predicting Parental Burnout among Mothers
Unconditional Model
Estimate

SE

Conditional
Model 1
Estimate SE

24.41

1.22

26.01

2.85

6.44

3.15

-28.91

14.11

-.07
.04
4.76***
2.08 ***-.42***.00-.01-2.39***.42-2.15***

.05
.08
.71
.27
.07
.06
.41
.49
.19
.55

-.10
-.05
5.83***
2.25***-.40***.02-.06-2.02***.34-2.01***
3.67 ***

.05
.08
.71
.27
.07
.06
.40
.49
.19
.55
.26

-.11
-.05
5.90***
2.26 ***-.39***.02-.01-2.00***.32-.1.96***
3.69***

.05
.08
.71
.27
.07
.06
.40
.49
.19
.55
.26

.000*
44.52*
.55*

.000
20.30
.27

Fixed Part
Intercept
Individual Level
Age
Educational Level
Working Status
Number of Children
Age Youngest Child
Number of Hours With Children
Number of Women In Household
Number of Men In Household
Family Type
Neighborhood
Egalitarian Values
Societal Level
GDP per capita
Gender Equality
Egalitarian Values *Gender Equality
Random Part
(between countries)(within countries)
Derived estimates(between countries)(within countries)

Conditional
Model 2Estimate SE

Conditional
Model 3
Estimate
SE

6.98
26.00

6.59
25.73

6.44
25.48

4.92
25.48

.07

10.86%
2.06%.06

14.88%
3.96%.06

50.31%
3.96%.04

Note. * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001. The first model is the unconditional model with no predictor. This baseline model is useful to estimate the reduction in prediction
error variance comparing the model without covariates (unconditional model) with the model of interest (i.e. Conditional Models 1 to 3). The percentage of variance explained
between countries () and within countries () at each step is indicated in the second part of Table 1. Greater values indicate greater explanatory power.

percentage of explained variance between countries;

refers to the percentage of explained variance within countries.

43

refers to intraclass correlations.

refers to theRunning head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Supplemental Material

Content

Table S1. Ethics Approval in Each Country
Table S2. Data Collection Procedure in Each Country
Table S3. Fit Indices for the Egalitarian Values Model in each Country

44

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table S1. Ethics Approval in Each Country

Name of the Ethics committee

Reference number

Algeria
Argentina

Conseil scientifique du Centre de Recherche en Anthropologie Sociale et Culturelle (CRASC) Oran
Not requested

012/CRASC/DAR/DSRFR/SSR/2018

Australia

The University of Sydney Human Research

2019/062

Austria
Belgium

2019-014
2017/242018/20/Charlotte Schrooyen
CAAE: 12579119.5.0000.5407
CAAE: 99681118.-0.5504, 3.022.455
CAAE: 97550818.3.0000.5282

Ecuador
Egypt

Research Ethics at the University of Klagenfurt
Psychological Sciences Research Institute
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University
Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto
Universidade de São Paulo
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UERJ
Not requested
Comité National d’Ethique
Comité d’éthique de la recherche avec des êtres humains, Décanat de la recherche et de la création del’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
Universidad Autonoma de Chile-Ethics Committee
Not requested
Not requested
Comité Ético Científico de la Universidad de Costa Rica, Rodrigo Facio Campus, San Pedro, San José
Comité d'éthique de Recherche et de Publication de la Faculté de psychologie de l’Université de La
HavaneNot requested
Psychology department Faculty of Arts Menoufia university

Finland

University of Jyväskylä

FranceGermany
IranComité d'éthique pour les recherches comportementales et en santé (CERCES), Université de Paris
Universität Ulm Ethikkommission
Not requested

BrazilBurundiCameroun
CanadaChile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Cuba

45

576
CER-18-242-07.07
71-18
VI-1071-20183
No reference number provided by the Ethics
committee
No reference number provided by the Ethics
committee
2018 - 29
21/19

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Italy

Psychological Research of the University of Padova

Japan

Experimental Research on Human Subject
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences/College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo
Université Saint-Joseph, Beyrouth (USJ)
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences of Tilburg University
Not requested
Not requested

LebanonNetherlands
PakistanPeru

2527/2018,
94A4CED55F19F317187A28C382244070
420-4
2017-168
EC-2018.13

PolandSWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty in Sopot

WKE/S 8/II/37

Portugal

Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto

2017/12-12

Romania

University of Bucharest, Reg.No.CEC: 02/12.01.2018

RussiaHealth et Humane Services IRB00003875St.PetersburgStateUniversity IRB#1 — Behavioral

81

SerbiaSpain

Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
University of the Basque Country, M10/2017/209
Comité de Ética de la Investigación de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED,ESPAÑA)The regional ethic-committee in Gothenburg#2018-016
6-2018

SwedenSwitzerland
ThailandTurkeyUK
UruguayUSA
Vietnam

Ethical Committe from the State of Vaud
Chiang Mai University Research Ethic Committee, CMUREC
Bahcesehir University
University College London (UCL) Division of Psychology and Language Sciences
Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of the Republic
Stanford University IRB
Administrative Panel on Human Subjects in Non-Medical Research Rosary Santicruz David BA, Sime
Luketa RA, #: IRB Parental burnout 44889; Florida International University IRB
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Association of Educational Psychology of Ho Chi Minh City (AEPH)

46

DNR 1010-18
2018-00186
61/04618.01.2018, 20021704-604.01.01-125
CEHP/EP/2018/0004
No reference number provided by the Ethics
committee
IRB2-eProtocol 44889 #Registration 349
IRB-18-0472
No reference number provided by the Ethics
committee

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table S2. Data Collection Procedure in Each Country

1

Translation
and backtranslation

SurveyLanguage

Sampling
Procedure

Location of Data Collection

Algeria

Yes

Yes

ArabicSnowballArgentina

Yes

SpanishSnowball andconvenience

San Miguel de Tucumán
New South Wales, Victoria,
Queensland, Western Australia,
South Australia, Tasmania,
Australian Capital Territory
Undefined
Flanders and Wallonia

100

65.1

3

Survey Type (% Online)

Response
Rate (%)

Attrition
Rate (%)

Period ofData
Collection

90

5March-May
2018

Not
applicable

29

100

Not
applicable

45.6

December
2018-March
2019
May 2019

100

Not
applicableNot
applicable

50.8

Not
applicableNot
available

November
2018-March
2019

Not
applicable0

FebruaryMarch 2020

4

5

2

Australia

Not applicable

EnglishSnowball

Austria

Yes

GermanBelgium

FrenchDutch

BrazilYes (Dutch
version)-Not
applicable(Frenchversion)Yes

Snowball andconvenience
SnowballBurundiNot requested

7

Oran, Mostaganem,
Tlemcen, Ain
Temouchent, Relizane,
Chlef, El Bayadh,
Annaba, Constantine
et Oum El Bouaghi
100

0

6

Portuguese

Snowball andconvenienceSão Paulo and Rio de Janeiro
states: Amazonas, Ceará, Mato
Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais,
Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco,
Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, SãoPaulo, Sergipe

Notapplicable

FrenchStratified

47

Bujumbura Mairie,
Bujumbura rural,
Bururi, and Rutana

026

FebruaryMay 2019
FebruaryJune 2018

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
CamerounYes

Notapplicable

FrenchConvenience

CanadaNot applicable

FrenchSnowball

Chile

Yes

SpanishSnowball andconvenience

Ontario, Manitoba,
Saskatchewan, Alberta,
Québec, territoires du NordOuest
Santiago, Los Lagos (Puerto
Montt), Del Maule (Talca)

China

Yes

ChineseConvenience

Colombia

Yes

SpanishCosta Rica

Yes

SpanishCuba

Yes

Ecuador

61

11

100

Not
applicable

55

100

Not
applicable

56

Zhejiang

100

77

16

Snowball andconvenience

Undefined

100

Not
applicableNot
available

San José, San Ramon, Heredia,
Cartago, Alajuela
Snowball and convenience94

Notapplicable
98.3

88

Yes

Snowball andconvenience
SpanishYes

SpanishConvenience

100

Not
applicable

40

Egypt

Yes

ArabicSnowball andconvenience

0

90

10

FebruaryMarch 2020

FinlandYes

Finnish

86.3

99.4

FranceNot applicable

French100

Yes

GermanNotapplicable20

Not
available
33

Germany

Snowball andconvenience
Snowball andconvenience
Convenience

Quito, Latacunga, Ibarra
Otavalo, Saquisilí, Salcedo, El
corazón, Guaranda, Tulcán,
Cuenca, Guayaquil, Portoviejo,
Esmeraldas, Lago
Agrio/Sucumbíos, Puyo
Menoufia regions- 10 cites;
Shebin el kom, Sadat,
Menoufa, Bagour, Ashmon,
Quessna, Shodaa, sir elayan,
Tala, and birkt-elsaba
Hyvinkää, Posio, Jyväskylä

FebruaryApril 2018
January-July
2018
MayNovember
2019

Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur,
Ile-de-France
Ulm, Baden-Württemberg

48

YaoundeLa Havane, Mariel(Artemesia)

100

0

0

1

49

December2017-April
2018
MayDecember
2018
FebruaryOctober
2018
January
2018
December2017-April
2018
March-June
2018
SeptemberDecember
2018
MarchSeptember
2018Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Iran

Yes

PersanConvenience

Tehran0

Notavailable

3

Italy

Yes

Italian

Snowball andconvenience

Padova98

Not
applicable

28

Japan

Yes

Japanese

The 47 prefectures in Japan

100

Not
applicable

34

LebanonYes

FrenchArabicQuota
sampling (by aresearchcompany)
Stratified

100

46

Not
available

Netherlands

Yes

Dutch

Snowball andconvenienceMont Liban, Beyrouth, Liban
North, Liban South, Nabatieh,
Beqaa
Tilburg

100

Not
applicable

28

Pakistan
Peru

Yes
Yes

Urdu
SpanishConvenience
Convenience

0
46

98
Not
available

019PolandYes

Polish85

Yes

Portuguese

Coimbra, Porto81

Romania

Yes

Romanian

Convenience

Bucharest, Timisoara

86

Notavailable
50 (forpaper pencil
version)Not
available

1

Portugal

Snowball andconvenience
Snowball andconvenience

LahoreLima, Arequipa, Cajamarca,
San Martin, La Libertad,
LambayequeWarsaw

RussiaYes

Russian

Snowball andconvenience

Undefined

100

Not
applicable<1

SerbiaYes

Serbian

Snowball andconvenience

Belgrade

100

Not
applicable

22

Spain

Yes

SpanishSnowball andconvenience

Spain (undefined) and BasqueCountry (Galdakao and Igorre,
Azpeitia and Errenteria,
Vitoria-Gasteiz, Leitza)

68

15

23.4

49

22
51

AugustSeptember
2018
MarchDecember
2018
July 2018

AugustSeptember
2018
March 2018February
2019
July 2018
FebruaryMay 2018
FebruaryJune 2018
AprilDecember
2018
December2017-May
2018
AprilDecember
2018
November
2018-June
2019
February September
2018Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
SwedenYes

SwedishSnowballUndefined

100

Switzerland

Not applicable

FrenchSnowball andconvenience

Canton of Vaud

100

Thailand

Yes

Thai

Convenience

Chiand Mai

TurkeyYes

TurkishConvenience

Not applicable

EnglishYes

SpanishNot applicable

EnglishYes

Vietnamese

UK
UruguayUSA
Vietnam1

Not
applicableNot
applicable

27

0

Not
available

0

Ankara, Istanbul

0

63

5

Snowball andconvenience

England, Scotland, Wales andNorthern Ireland

100

Not
applicable

41

Snowball andconvenience
Convenienceand quota

Montevideo

0

0

0

Stanford, Florida

100

Not
applicableNot
available

Snowball andconvenience

44

March-May
2019
MayOctober
2018
JulySeptember
2018
April-June
2018
October
2018-March2019
October
2018
March 2018September
2019
March-May
2018

Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa,
12.5
Not
11
Cam Ranh province, Lamapplicable
Dong, Mekong Delta area
More information about the data collection procedure in each country is available upon request to the first author. Translation and back-translations were made once for2each language. The questionnaire was translated in a concerted manner by countries using the same version. For example, Spanish-speaking countries coordinated the Spanishtranslation. Some minor adjustments could however be made by each country. Location is larger for countries where online survey was used because it has been spread all3over the country. The location that is mentioned is where the sampling and data collection started. Survey Type: Online vs. Paper-Pencil. Percentage of participants who did
45

not complete the survey completely. For online surveys, the response rate is impossible to estimate. The French and English version of the IIPB survey were already6

7

available for use.

50

Running head: GENDER EQUALITY AND PARENTAL BURNOUT
Table S3. Model Fit Indices for the Factor Model of the Egalitarian Values in the Pooled Sample andin each Language.

S-Bχ (1)p

RMSEA_SB

SRMR

CFI_SB

TLI

Arabic

0.730

.393

0.000

0.009

1.00

1.01

Chinese

0.076

.782

0.000

0.003

1.00

1.02

Dutch

3.307

.069

0.084

0.008

1.00

0.97

English

2.357

.125

0.049

0.008

1.00

0.99

Finnish

2.903

.088

0.035

0.005

1.00

0.99

French

2.810

.094

0.026

0.005

1.00

1.00

German

1.469

.225

0.040

0.019

0.99

0.96

Japanese

0.411

.521

0.000

0.011

1.00

0.99

Persian

0.139

.709

0.000

0.007

1.00

1.03

Polish

0.013

.910

0.000

0.001

1.00

1.01

Portuguese

0.967

.325

0.000

0.015

1.00

1.00

Romanian

0.274

.601

0.000

0.007

1.00

1.04

Russian

0.009

.924

0.000

0.001

1.00

1.01

Serbian

0.117

.732

0.000

0.003

1.00

1.06

Spanish

4.234

.040

0.045

0.010

1.00

0.98

Swedish

0.945

.331

0.000

0.004

1.00

1.00

Thai

0.356

.551

0.000

0.008

1.00

1.03

Turkey

1.020

.312

0.009

0.007

1.00

1.00

Urdu

3.630

.057

0.163

0.045

0.99

0.76

Vietnamese

0.210

.654

0.000

0.003

1.00

1.03

2

51