Why Is It Difficult to Balance Work and Family? An Analysis Based on Work-Family Boundary Theory

Abstract

Work-family conflict has been one of the central issues in organizational behavior and human resource management research since the late 1980s. Although antecedents and consequences of work-family conflict have been widely studied, there are several limitations in the current literature as follows. Firstly, many researchers pay much of their attention to figuring out the antecedents and consequences of work-family conflict, but little attention is directed toward uncovering the inherent mechanism. Second, the effects of work interfering with family on individuals' work-related attitudes and behaviors have been examined extensively, but little attention

Work-Family Conflict and Primary and Secondary School Principals’ Work Engagement: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…Job satisfaction refers to an emotional state resulting from the appraisal of job ( Locke, 1976 ). Some studies revealed that work-family conflict was negatively related to job satisfaction ( Gao and Zhao, 2014 ; Armstrong et al, 2015 ; Baeriswyl et al, 2016 ; AlAzzam et al, 2017 ; Li and Wang, 2019 ) or that it led to low job satisfaction ( Zhou et al, 2011 ). According to the conservation of resources theory, the loss of resources in one domain may lead to the loss of resources in other domains; when work interferes with family, the loss of resources is not only in the family domain but also likely to occur in the work domain, thereby reducing job satisfaction ( Grandey and Cropanzano, 1999 ).…”

“…Most current research investigates the direct impact of work-family conflict on its outcome variables such as work attitudes and behavioral tendencies of employees, while less attention is paid to the internal mechanisms of work-family conflicts that produce these effects, so the intermediate processes of these effects are still in a “black box” to a certain extent ( Gao and Zhao, 2014 ). At present, many studies have paid attention to the mediating role of job satisfaction, such as work-family conflict indirectly affects employee’s job performance by job satisfaction ( Aminah, 2008 ), and job satisfaction plays a mediating role in the relationship between work-family conflict and physicians’ turnover intention ( Lu et al, 2017 ), the relationship between bidirectional work-family conflict and turnover intention ( Chen et al, 2014 ), and the relationship between family-to-work conflict and job performance ( Ma et al, 2017 ).…”

“…According to resource conservation theory ( Hobfoll, 1989 ), individuals maintain and acquire resources. However, due to the limited resources, when there is conflict between work and family, if the depleted resources are not supplemented in time, it will have a negative impact on people’s work attitude and behavior tendency ( Gao and Zhao, 2014 ). Studies have found that job satisfaction is one of the key attitudes associated with work engagement ( Saks, 2006 ; Simpson, 2008 ).…”

System Dynamics Model and Simulation of Employee Work-Family Conflict in the Construction Industry

“…In addition, the boundary theory argued that work and family are two relatively independent domains which have their respective boundaries. However, the theory also stated that the boundary of the scope of each role has permeability and flexibility [31]. Many studies have found that work flexibility can improve the work-family balance [32,33], thus reducing the negative impact of WFC on work and family life.…”

Negative Spillover Impact of Perceptions of Organizational Politics on Work–Family Conflict in China

“…Keeping a balance between work and family seems almost unrealistic as spillover across the domains usually occurs. This is especially true in China, where because of the more intensive competition and challenges under the background of a global depressed economy, and because of the one-child policy, Chinese people have to take on more family responsibilities (Gao & Zhao, 2014). According to the work-family interface model (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1987), WFC is a result of environmental situations or events in the workplace that are stressors.…”