Restorativeness of residence perceived by mothers with young children

Abstract

Recently, residential environments as places to recover from daily stress and mental fatigue have been focused on. However, few empirical studies have been done. The aim of this study was to investigate perceived restorativeness of residence occupied by mothers with young children. Mothers who were working and not working were investigated. The restorativeness was measured with the Japanese version of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), a scale developed by Hartig and colleagues (Hartig, Korpela, Evans, & Gärling, 1997) and translated by the authors. Using a structural equation modeling (SEM), the effect of the number of children mothers are raising and the number of worries mothers have about their youngest child on the restorativeness were examined. Also, the effect of the restorativeness on the preference for their residences were examined. Results showed that the effect of the number of children on the restorativeness differed between working mothers and non-working mothers: For non-working mothers the more children they are raising, the less restorativeness they perceived at their residences.