An investigation of work-life conflict in regional Australia: Empirical evidence from an Australian regional university

Abstract

Work-life conflict is a form of inter-role conflict that arises by reason of simultaneous occurrence of workloads and other aspects of life. Compliance with one may limit an individuals’ ability to meet the demands of the other domain. Work-life conflict has been examined by a number of discipline with varied methodological approaches. This resulted in a literature base with inconsistent findings. The extant research of work-life conflict literature mostly focused on the issues related to people living in non-regional areas; however, there is some scope of research into work-life conflict issues in some regional areas. The purpose of this study is to examine the work-life conflict among academics and general staff in a regional Australian university. The study will, therefore, explore how total work-hour and associated variables such as strain and social support affect work-life conflict among university employees. One way to examine work-life conflict more rigorously is by applying an occupational stress model such as the demanded-control-support (DCS) model that has a dedicated measurement tool and a clear theoretical framework. However, the DCS model only focuses on issues such as job demand, job control and social support. It does not consider the total work-hour that may have adverse implication for work-life conflict. This study therefore, applied an extended demanded-control-support (DCS) model for measuring work-life conflict among university employees. Both academic (n=132) and general (administrative) staff members (n=149) were surveyed through a web-based survey method, i.e. Survey Monkey, which was designed to measure each of the variables. Total work-hour of academics (48 hours) has been significantly greater than that of general staff (38 hours) ( p <0.05). The result suggests that total work-hour significantly affects the experience of work-life conflict for both the academics and general staff. However, further analysis reveals that academics experience significantly more ( p <0.05) work-life conflict than the general staff do. It is found that there is no significant difference between these two cohorts as regards the experience of strain. Finally, the study finds that the general staff experience a significantly ( p < 0.05) greater level of work related social support. The study puts forward practical implications for management of academics in regional university in Australia and guidelines for future research.