Socio-demographic Predictors of Parental Stress, Perceived Social Support, and Psychological Well-being among Midlife Parents in India

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21869867

Malika Mudit and Alpana Vaidya (Department of Psychology, Symbiosis College of Arts and Commerce, Pune, Maharashtra)

Demographic factors like gender, age, marital status, number of children, caregiving involvement, and employment status play an important role in shaping parental stress, perceived social support, and psychological well-being. However, their combined effects are not well studied among midlife parents in India. This study looked at whether these six sociodemographic variables were associated with significant multivariate differences in parental stress (PSS), perceived social support (MSPSS), and psychological well-being (WHO-5) in a sample of 188 midlife parents aged 40 to 60 years. A series of MANOVAs was conducted for each demographic variable along with assumption checks, including Box’s M test and the Shapiro-Wilk multivariate normality test. The results showed a significant effect of gender across all three outcome variables at the same time (Pillai’s Trace = 0.064, F(3, 184) = 4.20, p = 0.007). Females reported higher parental stress, lower perceived social support, and lower well-being than males. Other demographic variables did not have statistically significant multivariate effects. Findings are discussed in the light of the Indian sociocultural environment, limitations of the sample, and suggestions for future research.