Woman's work: The moderating effects of gender role orientations between the relationships of work-family conflict with voluntary turnover and being valued by one's spouse.

Abstract

Gender role attitudes determine the importance of work-family domains to individuals and how they are influenced by work-family conflict (WFC). In this study, we draw on gender role and social role theories to hypothesize that working mothers' gender role perceptions moderate the relationships between WFC and two outcomes: voluntary turnover (work domain) and feeling valued by one's spouse (family domain). We tested our hypotheses with 14-month time-lagged survey data from 731 working mothers in Japan. The results of our regression analyses suggest that working mothers scoring high on WFC and egalitarian gender roles have a lower propensity to voluntary turnover and a higher propensity to feel valued by their spouses than working mothers low on WFC and egalitarian gender roles. Our study highlights the importance of considering within-gender differences in research on WFC and moderating effects of gender role attitudes between WFC and outcomes in work and family domains.