The present investigation examined the relationship between sexual roles and pregnant women marital and emotional adjustment on the transition to parenthood. A hundred thirty three women participants were recruited from the public health care network in southern Brazil. The participants lived together with their partners and they were waiting for their first son or daughter. The tests used were the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (Bem, 1974), the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) and the Neuroticism Factor Scale (Hutz & Nunes, 2001). The data collection was individual and, in several cases, they fill the instruments in an interviewer presence. In a small amount of cases, participants responded to the instruments at home and later they returned them to the researcher. The results showed significant relationships between sex roles and marital adjustment. The results are discussed based on gender theories and on the international research on the transition to parenthood results.
pregnancy; sex roles; transition to parenthood; marital adjustment; emotional adjustment
