Abstract
Objective: This article investigates whether within-domain and cross-domain buffering by family and work resources can help mitigate the negative mental health effects of work-to-family conflicts (WFC) and family-to-work conflicts (FWC). Background: Most literature on the work–life interface stresses the need to maintain employees’ health and well-being by preventing the emergence of work–family conflicts. Since such conflicts tend to be an unavoidable concomitant of role expansion, we aim to put forward the debate on the conditions that might prevent their negative health consequences instead. Method: Fixed-effects linear regression analyses were applied to a sample of 4,920 employees in a three-wave employer–employee panel study in Germany. Using interaction analyses, we tested within-domain and cross-domain buffering of family (social support and relative bargaining power within partnerships) and work (job resources, support from direct supervisors or co-workers, formal and informal organizational support) resources in the relationship between strain-based and time-based WFC and FWC and mental health (SF-12). Results: Family resources and work resources somewhat mitigated the health risks of WFC and FWC. Overall, within-domain resources were more effective than cross-domain ones. Conclusion: It is important to consider resources in both the family and the work domains to determine the most effective ways of preventing the negative mental health consequences of work–family conflicts.
Highlights
To facilitate work–family integration, most of the literature suggests that conflicts due to competing demands in an employee’s family and work roles need to be prevented right from the start (Amstad et al, 2011)
Within families, such conflicts play a role in two directions: the family setting can be the source of conflicts that spill over into a person’s work life (Gutek et al, 1991; Netemeyer et al, 1996), while conflicts that a person experiences at work can be played out within the family setting (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985)
Since both life domains may provide resources to handle stress (Billings & Moos, 1982; Voydanoff, 2005), we propose that conflicts may be buffered in the domain where they emerge – that is, family-to-work conflicts (FWC) would be moderated by family resources and work-tofamily conflicts (WFC) by work resources
Summary
To facilitate work–family integration, most of the literature suggests that conflicts due to competing demands in an employee’s family and work roles need to be prevented right from the start (Amstad et al, 2011). We look at several family resources (having a partner, appreciation from partner, relative bargaining power in the relationship) and at a number of work resources (job resources such as flexible working, home-based telework, job autonomy, and wages; support from direct supervisors and co-workers; formal work–family organizational support such as work–family policies and health promotion; informal work–family organizational support such as a work– family supportive workplace culture) In this way we aim to provide a better sense of which specific resources are helpful in explaining how to avoid conflicts in the first place (Michel et al, 2011), and in mitigating their negative consequences on mental health. By using three waves from a longitudinal linked employer–employee panel dataset representative of large work organizations (more than 500 employees) in Germany (LEEP-B3; for further information see Diewald et al, 2014), and by applying fixed-effects regression modeling, we were able to overcome the limitations of the still prevalent crosssectional work–family studies and to learn more about the direction of causality in the relationship between work–family conflicts and health (Nohe et al, 2015)
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