Job Autonomy and Schedule Flexibility as Moderators of the Relationship Between Work-Family Conflict and Work-Related Outcomes

Using data on employees from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW), this study tests the effects of work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict (WTFC and FTWC, respectively) on job satisfaction and work engagement. Moreover, using the job demands-resources (JDR) model, this study evaluates whether job autonomy and schedule flexibility moderate these effects. The results support the matching hypothesis perspective, where WTFC (but not FTWC) is associated with lower job satisfaction and lower work engagement. Moreover, job autonomy and schedule flexibility are both found to moderate the effects of WTFC (but not FTWC) on job satisfaction and work engagement. These results highlight the importance of job autonomy and schedule flexibility in moderating the negative effects of WTFC (but not FTWC), and suggest that job autonomy and schedule flexibility both act as a buffer but only in matching-domain relations.