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Title
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Experiencing work-family conflict and enrichment in contemporary families
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Author
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Abstract
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| In adults’ lives, work and family form the two main life domains. Changing societal trends – such as the increase in dual-earner families, divorce rate, and workload levels – form the impetus for scientific research to investigate the dynamics of combining work and family life. Applying Bronfenbrenner’s (1986) ecological systems theory, the current PhD’s goal is to investigate how contemporary families experience work-family balance. This theoretical reasoning involves person-environment interactions. Within this framework, work-family balance can be understood as the shared and interacting function of people, contexts, and systems in a particular zeitgeist. Two parts cover the research objective: Part 1 focusses on the difference in experiencing work-family balance according to family composition (marital and relationship status) and Part 2 includes children as important family actors by investigating the relationship between work-family balance and children’s behavior. In both parts, differentiation is made between the negative and positive interaction of work and family, scientifically referred to as work-family conflict and enrichment. Work-family conflict is defined as “a form of inter-role conflict in which the role pressures from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect” (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 77). Interpreted and empirically confirmed as a distinct concept, work-family enrichment is defined as “the extent to which experiences in one role improve the quality of life in the other role” (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006, p. 73). This structure leads to the formulation of four research questions: (1) “Do married/cohabiting and divorced/separated parents experience work-family conflict differently?”, (2) “Do married/cohabiting and divorced/separated parents experience work-family enrichment differently?”, (3) “Does parents’ experience of work-family conflict negatively affect children’s behavior, via parental well-being and parenting performances?”, and (4) “Does parents’ experience of work-family enrichment positively affect children’s behavior, via parental well-being and parenting performances?” The first part, concerning family composition, is based on the DiF (Flanders) and LSAC (Australia) databases. Logistic and linear regression analysis was performed to formulate an answer to the research questions. The results revealed that the presence of a supportive partner in a household makes the difference in the ability to meet role demands and benefit from enrichment factors. However, a parent’s gender gives a more nuanced view of the results. For work-family conflict, fathers with a partner (either married, cohabiting, or repartnered) stood out the most. Being able to rely on a partner for household, parental, and financial aspects appears to buffer the conflicting work and family demands in comparison to single fathers. For work-family enrichment, surprisingly, single mothers experience more enrichment compared to partnered mothers. They seem to benefit more from having a stronger social network and an increase in enrichment sources from the work context due to the necessity of working more. Theoretically speaking, the work and family contexts surrounding parents interact negatively (conflict) and positively (enrichment) according to the parent’s gender and family composition. The second part describes an investigation of the relationship between work-family balance and children’s behavior via structural equation modelling on a subsample of the Pairfam (Germany) and LSAC (Australia) datasets. The results revealed that experiencing conflicting and enriching work and family roles affects children’s behavior in negative and positive ways, respectively. However, this relationship does not function directly but operates through the parental home environment, as it is fully mediated via the parent’s well-being and parenting performances. As such, through interacting systems, the experience of negative (conflict) and positive (enrichment) interactions between work and family spheres can spill over to other family members, such as the involved child. Based on these study results, the future outlook suggests an exploration through valuable comparative, multilevel, and longitudinal research. The subjects should be inspired by contemporary contexts and issues. Policy and practice recommendations are also important in developing the best interventions concerning work-family balance. Taking these research findings into account, a policy and practice framework is proposed that: includes factors representing families’ contemporary living situations; starts a continuous process of reflecting and improving current initiatives that are beneficial for parents and children; and helps design a policy and practice that specifically target work-family enrichment – next to or in combination with work-family conflict interventions. |
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Language
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English
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Publication
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Antwerpen
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Universiteit Antwerpen, Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen, Departement Sociologie
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2022
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Volume/pages
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XIV, 161 p.
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Note
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Mortelmans, Dimitri [Supervisor]
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Full text (open access)
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