Abstract
Research on the relationship between work-family conflict and alcohol use has generally shown small effects possibly due to failure to include important individual differences relevant to the experience of work-family conflict and alcohol use, notably age. This study examined whether the relationships between aspects of work-family conflict and alcohol use variables differed by age. Participants were 543 individuals (51.2% women) from a community sample of working adults in the greater Chicagoland area who responded to a mail survey at three time points. Results showed important differences between age groups in several predictors of alcohol use. Strain versus time-based conflict had different effects on drinking, and strain-based forms of work-family conflict were related to increased problematic alcohol use depending on age. This study indicates that individual differences, particularly age, should be systematically accounted for when studying the relationship between work-family conflict and alcohol use.
Highlights
Research examining the link between work-family conflict (WFC: when work and family roles conflict with each other) and alcohol use has generally found the strength of the relationship between these variables to be small
Recent models of the work-family interface take a bidirectional approach that distinguishes between work interfering with family (WIF) and family interfering with work (FIW), which is important because they appear to operate independently in empirical studies
For the average number of drinks per day in the past 30 days (Table 2), wave 1 (W1) strain-based FIW predicted a greater number of drinks and W1 time-based FIW predicted a fewer number of drinks per day for individuals under 34 and aged 34–45, the latter of which was significantly different from the over 45 group in both cases
Summary
Research examining the link between work-family conflict (WFC: when work and family roles conflict with each other) and alcohol use has generally found the strength of the relationship between these variables to be small (see [1]). This may be due to a general failure to examine individual differences (other than gender (e.g., [2])) that may moderate the relationship between WFC and alcohol use (see [3]). The purpose of the current study was to examine the longitudinal effects of WFC on various indicators of alcohol use among individuals of different ages, while controlling for caregiving responsibilities.
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