"Don't Bring Work Home": How Career Orientation Moderates Permeable Parenting Boundaries in Dual-earner Couples

Having parenting boundaries permeated by work, expressed in bringing work home and dealing with work-related issues while performing the parental role can relate to increasing levels of work-family-conflict. This association, however, might be influenced by inter-individual differences in the meanings associated with work (career role orientation). To investigate these links we conducted a dyadic two-wave study that included 119 highly educated (59% of mother and 43% of fathers have a university degree) dual-earner couples with preschool-aged children. Participants' self-reported on permeable parenting boundaries (PPB), career role orientation (CRO), and work-family-conflict (WFC). Actor-partner moderated effects were modeled across time and patterns of moderating effects were tested. Results showed that, controlling for time 1 WFC, fathers' and mothers' PPB at time 1 predicted positively fathers' and mothers' WFC at time 2 (actor effects). Mothers' and fathers' career orientation at time 1 had no main effect on mothers' or fathers' WFC at time 2. However, two interaction effects were found. Mothers' PPB at time 1 predicted higher mothers' WFC at time 2 when fathers were less CRO and mothers' PPB at time 1 predicted higher fathers' WFC at time 2 when mothers were less CRO. Findings suggest that career orientation may be an important moderator of the negative relationship of permeable parenting boundaries on WFC, in particular of the effects of mothers' permeability. The evidence of couple interactions regarding career orientation indicates the need for systemic analyses of the work-family boundary management process.