Abstract
Job characteristics are important to work-family conflict (WFC). Additionally, is well established that WFC has a negative impact on mental health. As such, this research aims to examine the role of WFC as a mechanism that explains the relationship between job characteristics (i.e., those establishing by the Job Demands-Control-Support Model) and workers’ mental health. Moreover, based on gender inequalities in work and non-work roles, this study analyzed gender as moderator of this mediation. Specifically, the relationship between job characteristics and WFC and the relationship between WFC and mental health could be stronger for women than for men. With a sample of 254 workers from a Portuguese services company, (61% males), and based on a multiple-group analysis, the results indicated that the WFC mediates the relationship between job characteristics (i.e., job demands and job control) and mental health. It was reinforced that job demands and lack of control could contribute to employees’ stress and, once individual’ energy was drained, the WFC could emerge. Ultimately, may be due to the presence of this conflict that individuals mental health’ is negatively affected. Contrary to our expectations, this relationship is not conditioned by gender (Z-scores were non-significant). The study results have implications for human resource management, enhancing the knowledge on the relationship between the WFC and workers’ mental health.
Highlights
The European Mental Health Action Plan for 2013–2020 underlines that mental health is one of the top public health challenges, affecting about 25% of the population every year (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015)
Models were compared based on chi-square difference tests, and on other fit indices: the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), the incremental fit index (IFI), the Bentler comparative fit index (CFI), and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)
We examined an integrated and mediation moderated model in order to verify (1) the mediating role of the work-to-family conflict (WFC) in the relationship between job characteristics and workers’ mental health and (2) the role that gender plays as moderator of this relationship
Summary
The European Mental Health Action Plan for 2013–2020 underlines that mental health is one of the top public health challenges, affecting about 25% of the population every year (World Health Organization [WHO], 2015). Job Characteristics, WFC and Mental-Health the uselessness of life). The Job Demands-Control and Support model (JDCS; Karasek, 1979; Karasek and Theorell, 1990) is perhaps the most extensively tested and empirically validated model which, in its simplest form, explains workers’ mental health as a function of job characteristics: job demands, job control, and job support. 77), is known for its negative impact on workers’ mental health (Frone, 2000; Michel et al, 2011; Carvalho and Chambel, 2016). Research has shown that job characteristics are relevant to the WFC emergence (Michel et al, 2011). This suggests that the WFC may have a crucial role in explaining the relationship between job characteristics and workers’ mental health
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