Spillover and Crossover Effects of Work-family Conflict among Married and Cohabiting Couples

• In Event: 4423 - Developing and Testing Creative Synergies between the Sociology of Mental Health and Organizations, Occupations, and Work

Abstract

The present study uses data from Wave 8 of the German Family Panel to examine the relationship between work-family conflict and three outcomes among dual-earning couples. Using the Actor-Partner Independence Model (APIM) and dyadic data analysis with structural equation modeling, we evaluate whether work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict are associated with job satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, and mental health. More specifically, we test the effects of work-family conflict (in both directions) on individuals (i.e., actor effects), as well as on their spouses or partners (i.e., partner effects). We further contribute by assessing whether the results vary for men and women, as well as for cohabiting versus married couples. Results suggest that among married couples, there are no gender differences in actor and partner effects, but both effects remain distinct in predicting job and relationship satisfaction. For mental health, however, there are gender differences in actor effects (but not in partner effects) and both actor and partner effects remain distinct. Among cohabiting couples, there are no differences in actor effects by gender, and adding in partner effects does not significantly improve the models predicting all three outcomes. Some results also suggest that relationship dynamics might differ between married and cohabiting couples. Specifically, the negative actor effect of women’s work-to-family conflict on mental health and the negative actor effects of both men and women’s work-to-family conflict on job satisfaction are stronger among cohabiting than among married couples. The implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Authors

• Deniz Yucel, William Paterson University

• Beth Latshaw, Widener University