Work-family conflict in dual-earner couples: Within-individual and crossover effects of work and family

Three hundred ninety-nine dual-earner couples participated in a field study examining the effects of work and family variables on work-family conflict. The effects of own (i.e., within-individual) and partners' (crossover effects) work and family involvement, career salience, perceived flexibility of work schedule, and partners' work-family conflict on individuals' work-family conflict were examined. Results indicated significant relationships between the study variables and individuals' work-family conflict, consistent with previous research. Furthermore, and of most interest to the present study, partners' work-family conflict accounted for a significant amount of variance in both males' and females' work-family conflict. Post hoc exploratory analyses further revealed that crossover effects accounted for a significant amount of variance in work-family conflict over and above the within-individual effects, suggesting that future research on work-family conflict use the couple as the unit of analysis. (C) 1997 Academic Press.