Women, work & well-being: The influence of work-family and family-work conflict

The effect of both work and family roles on individual well-being has received some recent attention. It has been suggested that inter-domain conflict is generally experienced to a greater extent by women, as compared to men and furthermore, this effect is compounded for women with dependent(s). This paper reports an investigation of this experience within a sample of 371 employed New Zealand women with various demographic characteristics (partner and/or dependents). The respondents completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire containing a number of standardised measures. Differences were found in the expected directions, on a number of psychological constructs including perceptions of inter-domain conflict and psychological well-being. Inter-domain conflict was adversely influenced by the presence of dependents, especially for women without partners. To some extent, partners had a positive effect and dependents had a negative effect, upon respondents' levels of psychological well-being.