Does job control buffer work demands' detrimental impact on public child welfare case managers' affective well-being? Extending the nonlinear demand-linear control model

Abstract

Public child welfare agencies are legally responsible for the safety, permanency, and well-being of millions of vulnerable children and youth. Fulfilling this critical societal function occurs in an occupational environment consisting of large caseloads and immense time pressures. Research demonstrates that exposure to high work demands can negatively impact employees' affective well-being. Despite this well-documented finding, no known published quantitative research study has investigated if workplace resources, such as job control, can help buffer work demands' adverse effects on the affective well-being of public child welfare case managers. This study addressed this issue by testing a recently introduced nonlinear demand by linear control model on a sample of 349 county-based public child welfare case managers from the state of New York. As expected, the moderated nonlinear model was statistically and significantly associated with job-related affective well-being in the expected direction. This finding is the first-of-its-kind and, therefore, adds to both the child welfare and DC model literatures.