More Than Maxed Out: The Impact of Role Meaning on Psychological Well-being for Working Parents

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 13. Job Satisfaction and Well-being

Abstract

Extensive research has established a robust link between work-family conflict and well-being for working parents. However, the extant research has galvanized around a concept of work-family conflict that focuses on the practical and structural constraints that can arise from participation in both work and family roles (i.e., conflicts regarding the allocation of time and energy). In contrast to focusing on how the practical requirements of one role can interfere with successful role-performance in another domain (e.g., when one is not able to attend parent teacher conferences because of work obligations), I question whether discrepancies in the cultural meanings of work and parental identities can itself negatively impact well-being by producing strained social interactions. To this end, I merge data on the cultural sentiments attached to parental and occupational identities (Francis and Heise 2006) with traditional large-scale survey data on work-family conflict to empirically examine the extent to which discrepancy between the cultural meanings (i.e., fundamental sentiments) of occupational identities and parental identities impact psychological well-being for working parents, net of comprehensive measures of work-family conflict. I find that cultural discrepancy negatively affects psychological well-being and perceived constraints, net of role-conflict and other control variables. This effect is also robust to the inclusion of the big five personality variables, suggesting that the impact of cultural discrepancy on well-being is not due to personality-based selection into occupational and parental roles.

Authors

• Mark Henry Walker, University of Iowa

• Freda B. Lynn, University of Iowa

• Mary C. Noonan, University of Iowa