Identifying Latent Groups in Married Working Women’s Work-Family Spillover and Testing the Difference of Mental Health

Abstract

This study investigated the latent groups depending on married working women’s work-family spillover. The effects of factors that determine mental health subgroups and differences were also analyzed. Mixture modeling was applied to the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women & Families to achieve the research objectives. The major findings of this study were as follows. First, there were four subgroups that could be defined according to the work-family spillover: mid-level spillover group (mid-positive and mid-negative spillover group), high-level spillover group (high-positive and high-negative spillover group), low-level spillover group (low-positive and low-negative spillover group), and high-negative and low-positive spillover group. Second, the results of mixture regression analysis to test the effect of eco-system variables showed that age, academic background, non-traditional family value, number of children, work hours, wage income, and availability of the maternity leave were significant determinants of the latent groups. The probability of classifying in the high-negative and low-positive spillover group increased when women showed a lower academic background and wage income, higher number of children and older age, and longer work hours than others. Third, the high-level spillover group, and the high-level spillover group showed the lowest stress and the lowest depression; however, the low-level spillover group reported the highest stress and the highest depression. Implications, limitations, and future directions were discussed based on the results. Keywords: married working women, work-family spillover, mental health, mixture modeling