The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic upended work, family, and social life. These massive changes may have created shifts in exposure to work-life conflict. Using a national survey that followed Canadian workers from September 2019 into April and June 2020, the authors find that work-life conflict decreased among those with no children at home. In contrast, for those with children at home, the patterns depended on age of youngest child. Among individuals with children younger than 6 or between 6 and 12, no decreases in work-life conflict were observed. In contrast, those with teenagers did not differ from the child-free. Although these patterns did not significantly differ by gender, they were amplified among individuals with high work-home integration. These findings suggest an overall pattern of reduced work-life conflict during the pandemic—but also that these shifts were circumscribed by age of youngest child at home and the degree of work-home integration.

The stress associated with work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) is well documented. However, surprisingly little is known about the resources that moderate the effects of work–family conflict on health over time. Using four waves of panel data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (2011–2017; n = 11,349 person-wave observations), we compare how a core psychosocial resource (personal mastery) and a salient organizationally based resource (schedule control) moderate the health effects of WFC and FWC. After establishing these health effects related to distress and physical symptoms, we discover that mastery has generalized stress-buffering functions whereby it alleviates the health effects of both WFC and FWC. In contrast, schedule control has asymmetrical moderating functions: It attenuates the health effects of WFC only. These findings elaborate and sharpen the scope of resources as moderators in the stress process model—and we integrate these ideas with other conceptual models like the job demands-resources model.

Has the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic altered the status dynamics of role blurring? Although researchers typically investigate its conflictual aspects, the authors assess if the work-home interface might also be a source of status—and the relevance of schedule control in these processes. Analyzing data from nationally representative samples of workers in September 2019 and March 2020, the authors find that role blurring is associated with elevated status, but the onset of coronavirus disease 2019 weakens that effect. Likewise, schedule control enhances the status of role blurring, but its potency is also weakened during the pandemic. These findings align with the suggestion that role blurring signals a commitment to work and adherence to ideal worker norms. However, the pandemic changed that by intensifying role integration and possibly by reducing the degree of agency once associated with role blurring. The loss of choice around role blurring might have also diluted the distinctive status that it once carried.

The fluid boundaries between work and family life and the dynamic ways these domains are shaped by communication technology represent an important area in work-family research. However, surprisingly little is known about how family contact at work affects functioning in the work role—especially how these dynamics may change and unfold over time. Drawing on longitudinal data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (2011–2017), the present study examines the association between family contact and family-to-work conflict. We find that increases in family contact over time are positively associated with more family-to-work conflict, but gender and three salient family-related conditions—financial strain, providing care for family members, and difficulties with children—are key moderators of this focal relationship. We discover that the focal association is significantly stronger for women and for those with elevated levels of financial strain, caregiving responsibilities, and difficulties with children over time. We discuss these results by integrating border theory with stress amplification and the cost of caring.

Schedule control is theorized as a job resource that should reduce the extent to which work demands bleed into nonwork time and decrease work-to-family conflict. However, schedule control might also come with greater expectations that workers fully devote themselves to work even during non-conventional work times; in this scenario, schedule control might act as a channel through which job demands can more easily permeate nonwork roles and generate conflict. Drawing on four waves of panel data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (2011–2017), the authors use fixed effects regression techniques to discover some contradictions in the resource functions of schedule control. The authors find that schedule control exacerbates the effect of job pressure on role blurring, and these observed downsides of schedule control are stronger for women. By discovering gendered effects in the moderating role of schedule control, this study sharpens prevailing knowledge about its functions as a resource and the ways that it might channel stressful work-related demands.