Work-family Research Research Articles

Changing placements: A punctuated equilibrium model of work-family role boundary reconstruction.

In the face of changes to the work-family environment, the ability to manage role boundaries may be threatened. Drawing on punctuated equilibrium models of system change and cognitive dissonance theory, we extend boundary theory through a conceptual model that explains how and when individuals may tear down and rebuild work and family role boundaries in the mind in order to maintain well-being. We argue that divergent events compel individuals to enact role boundaries inconsistent with those held internally in the mind, resulting in cognitive dissonance. We further argue that high levels of cognitive dissonance past a threshold may trigger a revolutionary change in the deep structure of one's internally drawn role boundaries, resulting in a significant change in the extent to which work and family roles are cognitively segmented or integrated. We also argue that change events that generate lower levels of cognitive dissonance can be mitigated with boundary management tactics that create only incremental changes to work and family role boundaries. Our model advances a dynamic perspective of boundary theory that returns focus to the boundary placement process, which is often overlooked in work-family research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

On States and Traits in Work-Family Research

ABSTRACT Latent state-trait research on work-family conflict confirms that occasion-specific variation in work-related demands is related to corresponding variations in perceptions of work interfering with family (WIF), but WIF also displays moderate (~35%) to substantial (~80%) trait-like stability over time. What is not clear to date is whether this cross-situational stability in WIF is due to stable respondent characteristics (e.g. personality traits) or intrinsic situational stability in the work environment (e.g. work demands). Results from secondary analyses of four diary study data sets indicated that Trait-based (time-invariant) WIF primarily reflects intrinsic stability in work situations (e.g. especially workload) and to a lesser extent Negative (but not Positive) affect. Results support recent theory and add to a growing body of research on stability in work-family conflict across both daily and weekly assessments. Implications for interventions aimed at ameliorating WIF are discussed.

Flexible work arrangements in collective agreements: evidence from Spain and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Collective labour agreements are an understudied yet key aspect of flexible work policies, which are crucial resources for workers in combining work, family and other life domains. Despite a rich comparative work-family literature on flexible work arrangements at the company and national levels, little attention has been given to those negotiated collectively. Evidence on this topic is needed because such agreements can complement low levels of provision or even compensate the absence of company or national-level arrangements, ultimately defining their access. We contribute in filling this gap by conducting a cross-sectoral comparative exploration of collectively bargained provisions of flexible work arrangements in Spain and the Netherlands. We examine the clauses of 209 agreements using unique collective bargaining data from WageIndicator (2021). The analyses illustrate two important aspects of collectively bargained ‘family-friendly’ provisions. First, how differences in national baseline legislation shape opportunity structures for collective innovation around flexible work arrangements. Second, how sectoral variations appear to be primarily influenced by the representation of workers in high-skilled jobs, particularly when supported by high union density, rather than the share of female workers. We discuss the implications of these findings for workers’ work-family reconciliation and future work-family research.

Platform work‐lives in the gig economy: Recentering work–family research

AbstractCrowdwork platforms have been widely celebrated as challenging gendered labor market inequalities through new digitally mediated possibilities for reconciling work, home, and family. This paper interrogates those claims and explores the wider implications of digital labor platforms for an expansive work–family research agenda stubbornly rooted in formal modes of employment in the “analogue” economy. Based on ethnographic research with women platform workers in the UK (using PeoplePerHour, Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, and Copify), the paper asks: what are women crowdworkers' lived experiences of integrating paid work and family relative to formal employment? And what coping tactics have women developed to reduce gendered work–family conflicts on digital labor platforms? In response to these research questions, the paper makes three contributions. First, it offers a critical review of recent commentary to theorize how disruptive innovations by digital labor platforms to recast long‐standing definitions of “work”, “workers”, “managers”, and “employers” have served to position platforms and platform workers as somehow outside the analytical gaze of the expansive work–family research agenda. Second, it extends a growing alternative work–family analysis of platform work to examine the kinds of “work–life balance” (WLB) provision available to women crowdworkers in the absence of an employer; and how women's experiences of algorithmically mediated and contradictory work–family outcomes further challenge widespread claims of new platform work–life “flexibilities”. Third, the paper points to exciting and urgent possibilities for advancing and recentering work–family research through new engagements with platforms, algorithmic management, and “independent” platform workers in support of feminist activism and campaigning around WLB.

Humane orientation, work-family conflict, and positive spillover across cultures.

Although cross-national work-family research has made great strides in recent decades, knowledge accumulation on the impact of culture on the work-family interface has been hampered by a limited geographical and cultural scope that has excluded countries where cultural expectations regarding work, family, and support may differ. We advance this literature by investigating work-family relationships in a broad range of cultures, including understudied regions of the world (i.e., Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia). We focus on humane orientation (HO), an overlooked cultural dimension that is however central to the study of social support and higher in those regions. We explore its moderating effect on relationships between work and family social support, work-family conflict, and work-family positive spillover. Building on the congruence and compensation perspectives of fit theory, we test alternative hypotheses on a sample of 10,307 participants from 30 countries/territories. We find HO has mostly a compensatory role in the relationships between workplace support and work-to-family conflict. Specifically, supervisor and coworker supports were most strongly and negatively related to conflict in cultures in which support is most needed (i.e., lower HO cultures). Regarding positive spillover, HO has mostly an amplifying role. Coworker (but not supervisor) support was most strongly and positively related to work-to-family positive spillover in higher HO cultures, where providing social support at work is consistent with the societal practice of providing support to one another. Likewise, instrumental (but not emotional) family support was most strongly and positively related to family-to-work positive spillover in higher HO cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Immigrant Workers’ Language Proficiency and Cultural Identity Congruence and Work–Family Conflict: The Mediating Role of Interpersonal Conflict at Work

To facilitate a much greater understanding of work–family conflict (WFC) in the cross-cultural context, work–family research begins to investigate the critical role of acculturation in WFC. The purpose of this study is to expand understanding of the role of acculturation in a more nuanced way by investigating how two important facets of acculturation (i.e., language proficiency and cultural identity), jointly influence WFC among immigrant workers. We conducted a polynomial regression with response surface analysis using two-wave longitudinal data from Chinese immigrants in New Zealand ( N = 264). The results showed that the congruence of language proficiency and cultural identity led to lower levels of interpersonal conflict at work (ICW). However, the congruence between them at high levels did not lead to lower levels of ICW compared to congruence at low levels. In addition, ICW fully mediated the combined effects of immigrant workers’ language proficiency and cultural identity on their WFC. Our results suggest that benefits are associated with language proficiency and cultural identity congruence and the findings provide insight into the role of acculturation in WFC.

Work-Family Research: Managing Work and Family Identities in Different Stages of Life

Work-Family Research: Managing Work and Family Identities in Different Stages of Life

Gender‐ethnicity intersectional variation in work–family dynamics: Family interference with work, guilt, and job satisfaction

AbstractAlthough guilt is often considered the most prevalent emotional outcome of work–family conflict (WFC), most work–family research focuses on family‐related guilt stemming from work interference with family, rather than job‐related guilt stemming from family interference with work (FIW). In addition, there is little understanding of how different employee social groups experience the implications of FIW in their daily lives. To address these research gaps, this study explores the relationship between daily FIW and job‐related guilt, and its subsequent impact on job satisfaction. It also investigates variation in these relationships by (1) gender and (2) the intersection of gender and ethnicity. Bayesian multilevel structural equation modeling using data from 5‐day diary surveys from 210 solicitors in Britain shows daily FIW is associated with higher job‐related guilt and subsequently lower job satisfaction. The relationship is stronger for women than men in general, but is also stronger for South Asian women than white British women (and men), and for South Asian men than white British men. This suggests that studies focusing on single social group characteristics (e.g., gender) are likely to obscure intersectional effects that might produce significant within‐group variation. The findings also highlight the importance of integrating workplace inequality arguments into theorization of WFC.

Work and Family Balance in Chilean Young People’s Life Plans

The distribution of paid work and family responsibilities along gender lines is an important source of gender inequality, even in younger generations. Young people declare to embrace egalitarian work-family conciliation ideals, but, in practice, women still assume the bulk of domestic and carework. This study advances work-family research by shedding light on the institutional and contextual factors that influence young people’s decisions in this domain. Method The study uses a qualitative approach; 75 individuals aged 18–30 were interviewed using semi-structured and structured (vignettes) open-ended questions. Theoretical sampling was used, using sex and educational level as the main criteria. Thematic coding was used to analyze the material. Results Young people favor egalitarian work-family arrangements as ideals; however, the constraints imposed by institutional contexts and unequal employment opportunities make individuals more likely to prefer traditional arrangements when faced with decisions about how they expect to make employment and caring responsibilities compatible.

Unpacking work–family conflict in the marital dyad: Interaction of employee fit and partner fit

Can workers optimize their work and family lives when their involvement across both domains fits with their values, regardless of what their partners value? The current study suggests that it is not so simple; rather, we must take both employees’ and their partners’ perspectives into account in order to optimally understand the work–family interface. Herein we examine the relationships between employee fit (degree to which an employee’s role value aligns with his/her role involvement) and partner fit (degree to which a partner’s role value aligns with the employee’s role involvement) with work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, life satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Using data from 179 dyads of South Korean employees and their matched spouses/partners, we put forth a fit assessment to determine degree of discrepancy within dyads, and test a model regarding how such fit is associated with outcomes. Results suggest that partner fit moderates the effects of employee fit on work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, such that when partner fit rose, the negative effect of employee fit on conflict was strengthened. Thus, employees’ experiences of work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict were lowest when their role involvement was aligned with both their role value and their partner’s role value. Further, partner fit moderated the indirect (via work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict) effects of employee fit on life satisfaction (partially mediated), such that the effects were stronger when partner fit was high. Interestingly, partner fit also moderated the indirect effects of employee fit on turnover intentions (fully mediated) via work-to-family conflict, but not via family-to-work conflict. Implications and future research directions are discussed, including how this work advances relational considerations in work–family research both conceptually and empirically.

Examining How Leadership Role Occupancy Influences Both Leaders’ and Spouses’ Sleep Loss and Obesity

Drawing on work-family crossover research, the leadership role occupancy literature and self-regulation theory, we investigated not only how leadership role occupancy may affect job occupants’ obesity but also how its influences may crossover to shape their spouses’ obesity. Adopting a programmatic approach with three panel datasets from the US, UK, and Australia, we found that occupying a leadership role was positively related to job demands, which in turn was positively related to job occupants’ loss of sleep and obesity. Moreover, the crossover influences of job demand were also revealed: they were positively associated with spouses’ loss of sleep and obesity. Our research enriches leadership role occupancy research by offering a new crossover perspective and contributes to work-family research by highlighting the importance of holding a leadership position as an antecedent of the crossover effect of job demands.

The relationship between family cohesion, family-work conflict, enrichment and psychological health of Indian police

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to test the influence of family cohesion on family-to-work conflict (FWC), family-to-work enrichment (FWE) and psychological health. The study also aims to investigate the impact of FWC and FEW on psychological health. The study uses conservation of resources theory as a theoretical base.Design/methodology/approachData came from frontline officers of Rajasthan police in India using a purposive sampling technique. The study utilizes Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling to test the proposed research model.FindingsThe findings reveal that family cohesion is a critical family resource that diminishes FWC and boosts FWE. The findings further demonstrate that FWE improves psychological health. Lastly, the study displays that FWE fully mediates the link between family cohesion and psychological health.Research limitations/implicationsThe male-dominated sample prevents evaluating gender differences in the proposed relationships. Generalizations to other cultures and contexts are limited. The findings of the study suggest that police administrators need to understand the family characteristics of officers and plan interventions to facilitate a cohesive family environment in the police.Originality/valueLittle is known about the family direction relationships (FWC and FWE) in work-family research. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to test a model of family cohesion, FWC, FWE and psychological health.

Profiles of attribution for work–family conflict episodes and their relation to negative emotions

SummaryMany employees commonly deal with situations where their work and family lives are in conflict. Yet, scholarly understanding of how these episodic experiences influence employees' cognitions (i.e., attributions) and emotions is still limited. Further, the emergent line of work–family research on attributions tends to adopt a variable‐centric approach by investigating the effects of attributional dimensions in isolation, thus precluding a holistic view of how individuals form profiles of attributions in response to work–family conflict episodes. To advance the work–family literature, we employed an experience sampling design across 12 days to investigate profiles of attributions and the resultant discrete negative emotions (e.g., guilt, shame, regret, anger, frustration, and resentment) associated with work–family conflict in full‐time employees with children. Multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA) results revealed meaningfully different profiles of attributions that tended to occur in reaction to conflicts between work and family, with these profiles differing based upon direction of the conflict episode (i.e., work‐interfering‐with‐family [WIF] vs. family‐interfering‐with‐work [FIW]). Further, these attributional profiles, especially those associated with FIW episodes, differentially related to distinct negative emotions. Overall, our findings contribute to a nuanced understanding of profiles of attributions following work–family conflict episodes, with critical implications for affective well‐being.

What does schedule fit add to work–family research? The incremental effect of schedule fit on work–family conflict, schedule satisfaction, and turnover intentions

In recent years, the person–environment fit framework has become increasingly popular as a lens for understanding the work–family interface. However, the mechanisms that link objective work–family person–environment fit to individual outcomes are poorly understood, and little person–environment fit research has focused on work schedules despite their importance for employee management of work and family roles. Moreover, it is unclear whether schedule fit contributes to individual outcomes over and beyond schedule characteristics such as flexibility and control. The present study explains how employee objective schedule fit relates to individual turnover intentions through work‐to‐family conflict and schedule satisfaction in a study of 608 retail employees. Results show that objective work–family schedule fit has statistically significant relationships with employee outcomes independent of the effects of schedule control and flexibility, but that these relationships are relatively weak. These results establish that schedule fit is a facet of work–family person–environment fit beyond more generally desirable schedule characteristics, but that it may be useful to examine only in limited contexts. The results also contribute to the understanding of the cognitive mechanisms linking objective environmental characteristics to employee outcomes.Practitioner points The ability to work a schedule that meets preferences for days and shifts (hours) is related to better worker outcomes. This effect holds even when considering employees’ control over their schedule and its flexibility. Employees’ schedules are a starting point for forming their attitudes and behaviours related to the work–family interface, which may shape future turnover cognitions.

The value of mixed methods work-family research for human resource management: a review and agenda

Managing the work-family interface is increasingly strategic for international human resource management (HRM) in attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. Yet despite growing methodological sophistication in the field work-family research still lacks a truly global approach, one that considers alternative work and family conceptualisations, particularly those from the so-called Global South. This article addresses these shortcomings by proposing mixed methods research (MMR), rather than a single method (quantitative or quantitative only), to offer a dual analytical lens which can deepen and broaden our understanding of work-family issues in and across diverse and multinational contexts. We critically review the methodological features of 40 work-family studies that used MMR, revealing the need for stronger integration. Then, through a thematic analysis of the reviewed articles, we highlight three distinct ways in which MMR adds value to the field: grounding empirical work and theorising within context, improving appropriateness of measurement instruments, and enhancing validity of inferences for relevant HRM practices. We conclude with an agenda for future mixed methods work-family research and present implications for human resource managers and work-family scholars in an increasingly competitive and changing international employment milieu. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2021.1964092 .

How do changes in family role status impact employees? An empirical investigation

PurposeDespite the proliferation of work–family research, a thorough understanding of family role status changes (e.g. the gaining of elder or child caregiving responsibilities) remain under-theorized and under-examined. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize various forms of family role status changes and examine the ways in which these changes influence various employee outcomes.Design/methodology/approachData were collected as part of the work–family health study. Using a longitudinal, three-wave study with two-time lags of 6 months (n = 151 family role status changes; n = 392 individuals with family role stability), this study uses one-way analysis of variance to compare mean differences across groups and multilevel modeling to examine the predictive effects of family role status changes.FindingsOverall, experiences of employees undergoing a family role status change did not differ significantly from employees whose family role status remained stable over the same 12-month period. Separation/divorce predicted higher levels of family-to-work conflict.Originality/valueThe work raises important considerations for organizational science and human resource policy research to better understand the substantive effects of family role status changes on employee well-being.

What do we want now or later? Work-family decisions in a dual-earner context.

Dual-earner couples regularly make work-family decisions; i.e., decisions to deal with conflicts between work and family. Such decisions occur on a daily basis (e.g. when a family event interferes with a work deadline), but they can also relate to more long-term – or anchoring – choices about how to combine career and family plans (e.g. whether to work part-time, move elsewhere, …). Existing work-family research has mainly explored decision-making as a rather coherent and logical process. However, human choices are also characterized by automatic thinking processes, which are inherently prone to cognitive errors and can lead to suboptimal outcomes. In this theoretical paper, we argue that work-family conflict and dual-earner decision-making elicit specific conditions of uncertainty and complexity, making automatic thinking more likely. By drawing on behavioral decision-making literature, we develop several research propositions on how cognitive biases can impact short- and long-term decisions in a dual-earner context. We theorize that in the short run, individual partners tend to focus on avoiding immediate costs, choosing options that are not necessarily in line with couple commitments. For long-term decisions, partners may disproportionally focus on potential losses or coping challenges, thereby missing out on desirable work-family choices for the couple as a whole. Our propositions may guide work-family researchers to think about and include cognitive biases in their future studies.

Whether and how authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership affect the family satisfaction

The extant studies on leadership are replete with employee performance outcomes. However, the literature remains quite silent on whether leadership effects transfer to employees’ family members and influence their family satisfaction. In the present study, we explore the crossover effects of the most prevalent leadership styles in high power distance and collectivist cultures—namely, authoritarian leadership and benevolent leadership—on the employees’ spouses family satisfaction. Based on conservation of resources theory, we suggest that employees’ work-family conflict mediates the relationship between authoritarian leadership and family satisfaction of employees’ spouses, whereas employees’ work-family facilitation mediates the relationship between benevolent leadership and family satisfaction of employees’ spouses. Additionally, we investigate spouses’ need for control as a moderator of the indirect effect of authoritarian leadership, which moderates the relationship between employees’ work-family conflict and spouses’ family satisfaction. We test these hypotheses using multiphase, employee-spouse dyads from 207 Chinese couples. The findings contribute to work-family research by illustrating that leadership could affect employees’ work-family interface and ultimately influence the family satisfaction of employee’s spouse.

Gender matters: The effects of gender and segmentation preferences on work‐to‐family conflict in family sacrifice climates

Despite work–family research focusing on family‐friendly climates, many employees work under a family sacrifice climate, facing employer pressure to put the demands of work before the demands of family and leading to increased work‐to‐family conflict. A family sacrifice climate enforces consistent behavioural expectations across all employees in the form of family domain boundaries being permeable to work and work domain boundaries being impermeable to family. However, employees likely experience family sacrifice climates differently. Drawing on the boundary theory and social role theory, we investigate how individual differences in gender and boundary management preferences interact to shape the relationship between perceived family sacrifice climate at work and work‐to‐family conflict in a two‐wave sample of 157 professional employees. Results show women experience more work‐to‐family conflict from perceived family sacrifice climate than men, and segmentation preferences further shape this relationship but in opposite ways for men and women. Results indicate higher segmentation preferences are associated with a stronger relationship between family sacrifice climate and work‐to‐family conflict for women but a weaker relationship for men. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding the role of organizational climate in creating gendered work–family experiences.Practitioner points Some employees are more susceptible to undesirable effects of family sacrifice climate than others. Women compared to men are more likely to experience increased work‐to‐family conflict when they perceive their workplaces to have a family sacrifice climate. In family sacrifice workplace climates, women who prefer to segment work from family demands experience the greatest amount of work‐to‐family conflict while men who also prefer to segment work from family demands experience the lowest amount of work‐to‐family conflict.

The work-family interface and polygamy in Africa: A demands-resources perspective

ABSTRACT Work-family (WF) research in Africa has just begun to address unique elements of work and family relationships on this continent. In this paper, the relationships between family demands and resources in polygamous homes and family-to-work conflict and enrichment are put forward. Although some WF research has begun to broaden the definition of family to include extended family members, to date, polygamous family structures have been left out of the conversation. Yet, polygamous family structures are an important minority group with unique family-related resources and demands that impact the work-family interface. Drawing from a demands-resources approach, we discuss how demands and resources foster family-to-work conflict and enrichment among employed men and women in polygamous homes. We theorize about differences in family-to-work conflict and enrichment between employed men and women from both polygamous and monogamous African families. We also consider how gender roles and family values impact the experiences of employed husbands and wives within polygamous family structures. Opportunities for future research on this topic are discussed to foster understanding of the work-family interface for men and women in this non-trivial segment of the growing African economy.