Work-family conflict in the dual-career family

Abstract

The focus of this paper is the development and testing of a model of the relationships between work conflict, family conflict, work-family conflict, quality of work life, quality of family life, and life satisfaction. The model was based on the theoretical work of Kopelman, Greenhaus, and Connolly (1983, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 32, 198–215) and was tested on responses from 220 career-oriented individuals with children and a career-oriented spouse. Fifteen of 17 hypothesized relationships were significant and the variance explained in work-family conflict exceeded 49%. The results indicated that work conflict was the most important predictor of family conflict lending support to Kanter's contention that the work and family domains cannot be considered as separate, independent entities. Of 6 relationships tested, work conflict was also the most important predictor of work-family conflict. It is suggested that this is due to the fact that people have less control over their work lives than their family lives and implies that work operates as a dominant constraint over an individual. Work-family conflict was shown to have a significant negative influence on an individual's quality of work life and quality of family life, which, in turn, were highly related to life satisfaction.