Work‐to‐family Conflict and Family‐to‐work Conflict among Japanese Dual‐earner Couples with Preschool Children: A Spillover‐Crossover Perspective

Abstract

Work-to-family Conflict and Family-towork Conflict among Japanese Dual-earner Couples with Preschool Children: A Spillover-Crossover Perspective: Akihito SHIMAZU, et al. Department of Mental Health, The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine, Japan-Objectives: This study among Japanese dual-earner couples examined the independent and combined associations of work-tofamily conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) with psychological health of employees and their partners and the relationship quality between partners. Methods: The matched responses of 895 couples were analyzed with logistic regression analysis to examine whether there were differences among the four workfamily conflict groups (i.e., no conflict, WFC, FWC and both conflicts groups) in terms of own psychological distress, social undermining (i.e., negative behaviors directed toward the target person) reported by partners and partner's psychological distress. The no conflicts group was used as the reference group. Results: The both conflicts group had the highest odds ratios for own psychological distress and social undermining towards the partner for both genders. In addition, for husbands, the both conflicts group had the highest odds ratio for partner's psychological distress, whereas for wives, it did not. Conclusions: Dual experiences of WFC and FWC have adverse associations with psychological health of employees and relationship quality between partners of both genders. In addition, dual experiences in husbands have an adverse association with psychological health of their partners (i.e., wives), whereas this

Remember the Children, Honey! Spouses' Gender‐Role Attitudes and Working Mothers' Work‐to‐Family Conflict

“…Husbands' traditional gender‐role attitudes may increase their wives' WFC for several reasons: for example, because a husband with strong traditional gender‐role attitudes invests less in the family domain (for an overview, see Davis & Greenstein, ), thereby increasing the wife's family burden, or because incongruence between husband's traditional gender‐role attitudes and the wife's employment causes conflicts between spouses (McHale & Crouter, ). Indeed, ample empirical evidence has shown that crossover between spouses can occur through negative marital interactions (e.g., Shimazu, Kubota, Bakker, Demerouti, Shimada, & Kawakami, ). Taken together, husbands' traditional gender‐role attitudes may increase the probability that the mother will perceive her work role as interfering with her family role, and will thereby lead to an increased experience of WFC.…”

How job and family demands impact change in perceived stress: A dyadic study

“…These results are indicative of gender differences when it comes to crossover of interrole conflict and are in line with some of the previous empirical findings. For example, Shimazu et al [29] in their study on a Japanese sample found that women's distress was caused by men's FWC but men's distress was unaffected by women's FWC. However, there is also a body of research which shows no gender differences in the crossover of interrole conflict [32].…”

“…H3a, H3b -hypotheses 3a and 3b: the impact of women's (men's) T1 job and family demands on men's (women's) change in work-and family-related stress is mediated by women's (men's) T1 interrole conflict (partner effects). outcomes such as distress [28,29], health [30], and relationship tension [31] are predicted not only by individual's own interrole conflict but also that of their partners'. However, a few aspects of the current body of research require addressing.…”

“…However, a few aspects of the current body of research require addressing. First, studies in which the dyads were distinguishable (i.e., analyses were carried out separately for men and women) delivered inconsistent results on the role of gender in the crossover: some of them indicated differences between men and women [29], and some did not [32]. Second, most of the studies so far were cross-sectional and thus the findings should be corroborated with the data from longitudinal research.…”

Guilt, Gender, and Work-Life Balance in Japan

“…In addition to applying the choice experiment method to the study of work-life balance and using the estimates to cast light on the issue of labor market reform in Japan, our contribution is to bring in a behavioral angle to the debate. It is often reported that guilt about work-life dilemmas tends to differ according to gender (Martínez, et al 2011), especially when issues of child-care are involved (Shimazu, et al 2013). As part of the experiment we investigate the extent to which guilt drives differences in the mean willingness of men and women to accept trade-offs in job features that affect work-life balance.…”