Graduation Year
2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Psychology
Major Professor
Tammy D. Allen, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Brenton M. Wiernik, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Vicky Phares, Ph.D.
Keywords
Family-Supportive, Maternity, Physical Activity, Sleep, Work-Family Conflict
Abstract
While work-family matters continue to receive increasing attention, one group that faces considerable health, childcare, and work adjustment challenges has remained relatively ignored and understudied – postpartum mothers returning to employment. Driven by the work-home resources model as theoretical backing, I used path analytic methods to examine the mechanisms by which key workplace resources for postpartum women, including family-focused support from organizational stakeholders, flexibility availability, and breastfeeding resources, relate to their subsequent perceptions of work interference with family and engagement in physical activity and high quality/quantity sleep. Specifically, four waves of data were collected from a sample of 129 women across the span of late pregnancy through to six weeks after the postpartum return to work. While some hypotheses were not statistically significant, all effect sizes were in the expected direction and supplementary analyses provided clarification on the findings with regard to power and shared variance among predictors. The study has theoretical and practical implications that underscore the importance of family support from coworkers, the potential role of mediators in associations between work resources and engagement in health behaviors, and the need to focus on maternity experiences in work-family research.
Scholar Commons Citation
Waiwood, Aashna M., "Easing the Postpartum Return to Work: Workplace Resources, Work Interference with Family, and Health Behaviors" (2022). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/10365
