The health effects of work-family conflict in men and women Japanese civil servants: a longitudinal study

Abstract

High level of work-family conflict (WFC) is an important risk factor for stress-related health outcomes. However, many studies are cross-sectional studies. In this study, we aimed to clarify how changes in WFC levels over a period 5 years can affect workers' mental and physical health, and to clarify whether there are gender differences of them. Methods This study examined 1808 civil servants (1258 men and 550 women) aged 20-65 years working in a local government in the west coast of Japan from 2003 to 2008. Logistic regression analyses were used to examine whether the change in WFC contributes to workers' health problems and whether there are gender differences. Results This study revealed association sustained high WFC and deterioration of WFC conflict with poor mental health and poor job satisfaction for both men and women. In men high WFC conflict and deterioration was associated with poor mental health (OR=2.74). On 4 the other hand, women had strong relationship between WFC changes and poor physical health (OR=2.64). Conclusions WFC was an important factor as a social determinant of health of Japanese civil servants, and the change in WFC affects subsequent health problems with different trends in men and women.

A comparative study of the work-family conflicts prevalence, its sociodemographic, family, and work attributes, and its relation to the self-reported health status in Japanese and Egyptian civil workers

“…Similar to our ndings, the previous studies indicated a higher prevalence of poor self-rated health in Japanese; 13.9% in men and 17.7% in women [8], 35.2% in men and 36.0% in women [12] than Egyptians; 16.9% [11].…”

“…Despite the observed gender difference in the prevalence of W_F_Cs (Egypt: 19.1% in men vs. 23.7% in women, Japan:10.5% in men and 18.2% in women) and poor self-rated health (Egypt: 5.5% in men vs. 16.9% in women, Japan: 17.2% in men vs. 19.3% in women), our results are in line with the previous research showing associations of W_F_Cs and its two forms WFC and FWC with poor self-rated health of both genders in Japan [8, 12,20], Egypt [11], and other populations [4, 19,21,26]. Increased inter-role con icts between work and family domains can reduce the time for sleep [25] or leisure activities, thus increasing psychological stress [9] and affecting the physical health conditions [3].…”

“…W_F_Cs have been related to absenteeism, tardiness, leaving work early, turnover intentions, and other negative work behaviors [10]. Meanwhile, W_F_Cs have been associated with adverse physical and mental health outcomes [9,11,12].…”

“…Since then, self-rated health was widely used in social science research. So far, there is a considerable bulk of research studied the attributes of W_F_Cs [14][15][16][17][18] and linked W_F_Cs to poor self-rated health of community dwellers [8,11] and working populations [12,[19][20][21]. The literature indicated vast variabilities in the W_F_Cs' levels and their correlates, the proportions of subjects with poor self-rated health, and the magnitude of association between these con icts and self-rated health across different cultures and populations.…”

“…Kobayash et al reported the prevalence of high WFC and FWC among Japanese residents as 36.6% and 36.4% in men and 28.4% and 56.8% in women[8]. The prevalence of W_F_Cs estimated by Koura et al was much higher; 54.0% in 1258 male and 72.5% in 550 female civil servants on the west coast of Japan[12]. In contrast, Shimazu et al reported lower WFC and FWC prevalence of 15.2% and 21.2% in male and 22.5% and 16.3% in female Japanese dual-earner couples with preschool children[17].…”