Work-to-nonwork conflict among married male and female lawyers

Abstract

The primary objective of this study was to examine work-related factors that were hypothesized to contribute to time- and strain-based work-to-nonwork conflict among married male and female lawyers. The findings show that work overload was the only common determinant for both forms of work-to-nonwork conflict for both male and female lawyers. Work context was important in understanding female lawyers' feelings of time- and strain-based conflict, where working in a law firm resulted in greater work-to-nonwork conflict. For male lawyers, working longer hours, working in a setting with more women and having a wife who held the breadwinner role contributed to their feelings of time-based conflict. Contrary to what was expected, the actual number of hours worked was not important in influencing married lawyers' feelings of work-to nonwork conflict. The results show that the domestic status variables were not important for female lawyers' feelings of time-based conflict and that additional family roles reduces their feelings of strain-based conflict. It was argued that female lawyers may successfully cope with their demanding careers because they can afford to pay for external sources of child care and domestic assistance, which should be investigated in future research. It was also suggested that working long hours does not automatically lead to work-to-nonwork conflict for lawyers because they typically exercise considerable control over the scheduling of their work time, which may allow them to deal with the potentially conflicting demands of their work and nonwork lives. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.