Workaholism and work-family conflict among university academics

Because of governance and management changes in universities in recent decades, the working environment of university academics has changed. The objectives of this cross-sectional study were to investigate whether university academics are more workaholic and report more work-family conflicts than other university personnel and to provide empirical knowledge about the antecedents and outcomes of workaholism and work-family conflict among university academics. A questionnaire was used to collect data on job demands, job resources, workaholism and work-family conflict from 2186 university academics and 2551 technical and administrative personnel at 3 universities in Norway. The results show that academic personnel experienced more workaholism and work-family conflict than non-academic personnel. High job demands, especially high role overload, affected both workaholism and work-family conflict. Job resources had a marginal effect on both workaholism and work-family conflict. Workaholism was positively associated with work-family conflict and partly mediated the relationship between role overload and work-family conflict. It is not clear how job demands and workaholism interact with work-family conflict. Nevertheless, paying attention to the risks of workaholism and preventing it at all levels are important, since workaholism is associated with work-family conflict, which may adversely affect the health of the individual, the family and the workplace.