Predicting Work-Family and Familywork Conflict from Work and Family Domain: A Longitudinal Study

Zaiton Hassan,Hana Hamidi

doi:10.32890/ijms.19.1.2012.10364

Abstract

Although work-family conflict studies are available in Malaysia, most rely on cross-sectional design and focus on women. This study uses the longitudinal design on a heterogeneous sample which is aimed to enhance the understanding of the antecedents of work-family conflict (WFC) and familywork conflict (FWC) from work and family demands and resources. The respondents were 296 employees in diverse industries from six public and private organizations in Kuching, Sarawak. Two surveys were conducted over a three-month interval. Structural Equation Modeling via AMOS 7.0 was used to analyse the data. The study found that the respondents reported higher WFC than FWC. Demands from work predicted WFC positively while resources from work predicted WFC negatively. None of the demands and resources from work and family predicted FWC. The findings implied the importance of organizations in influencing the work-family balance of the employees. Keywords: Work-family conflict (WFC), family-work conflict (FWC), demands, resources.

Highlights

The capacity to balance work and family is recognized as one of the primary social challenges in this era Halpern (2005) in Grzywacz and Carlson (2007)
Using the Pearson Produce Moment Corelation, we found that job demands had positive relationship with work-family conflict (WFC) (r = .20, p < .01) and family-to-work conflict – (FWC) (r = .12, p < .01) at Time 2 while job resources had negative relationship with WFC (r = -.19, p < .01) and FWC (r = -.12, p < .05) at Time 2
Hypothesis 1 proposed that job demands will be positively related to WFC and job resources will be negatively related to WFC

Summary

Introduction

The capacity to balance work and family is recognized as one of the primary social challenges in this era Halpern (2005) in Grzywacz and Carlson (2007). A recent report in the United States indicated that more than 90 per cent of American mothers and 95 per cent of American fathers report experiencing work-family conflict, with the majority of them in the middle class (Anonymous, 2010). Lack of balance, indicated by high work-family and family-work conflicts are related to negative consequences to individuals’ employees and organisations. Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) defined work-family conflict (WFC) as ‘a form of inter- role conflict, in which the demands of work and family roles are incompatible in some respect, so that participation in one role is more difficult because of participation in the other role’(p. Previous researches have shown that WFC were related to greater turnover intentions, greater sickness absences (Hacker & Doolen, 2003), less job, family, community and life satisfaction (Hassan, Dollard & Winefield, 2010). Employers’ policies and practices in managing work and non-work issues have an influence on society including children, community, individuals and personal and spiritual development (Friedman & Greenhaus, 2000)

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