Happy Spouses, Happy Parents? Family Relationships Among Finnish and Dutch Dual Earners

In this study links between spousal and parentchild relationships among Finnish (n = 157 couples) and Dutch (n = 276 couples) dual earners with young children were examined using paired questionnaire data. Variableoriented analyses (structural equation modeling with a multigroup procedure) supported the spillover hypothesis, as higher levels of satisfaction in the spousal relationship were related to higher quality in the parent-child relationship and lower parental role restrictions. These connections did not differ by gender or country. With family typological analyses (mixture modeling), 4 family types were identified: families with satisfying relationships (73.4% of the families), families with unsatisfying parent-child relationships (13.4%), and families with either dissatisfied men (6.0%) or dissatisfied women (7.2%).