Does Work–Home Interference mediate the relationship between workload and well-being?

Abstract

Drawing on the Effort–Recovery (E–R) model, the current study investigated to what extent Work–Home Interference (WHI) mediated the relationship between workload and two indicators of well-being, that is, (a) affective well-being (i.e., work-related negative affect and depressive mood) and (b) subjective health (i.e., health complaints). In Part I of this study, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test several competing models of mediation—full, partial, or no mediation—in three homogeneous samples (166 medical residents, 194 child care workers, and 224 bus drivers). In Part II of this study, we cross-validated the best fitting model in an independent heterogeneous sample (1421 Dutch workers). The results provided support for the E–R model in that WHI played a significant role in mediating the impact of workload on workers’ well-being. WHI fully mediated the relationship of workload with depressive mood and health complaints, and partially mediated the relationship with work-related negative affect. This differential role of WHI indicates that WHI might play a more crucial mediating role with respect to general (context-free) indicators of well-being than with respect to work-related indicators of well-being. In general, the findings of the current study suggest that workload exerts its negative effects on well-being (at least partly) through a process of spillover of negative load-effects that impede recovery during the non-working hours.