Author: Steven A. Dennis

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13:

Changes in the American workforce have raised concern over the interface between family and work. The responsibilities and frustrations of the work domain frequently spill over to the family domain and vice versa. The purpose of this research has been to investigate the influence of workplace stressors, resources, and perceptions on subsequent negative work-to-family spillover. The theoretical direction for the study stems from a modified application of McCubbin and Patterson's double ABCX model, which fits well into the larger spillover perspective. The data for the study came from 1992 National Study of the Changing Workforce [NSCW). A subsample of respondents who worked full-time, lived with another family member, and were not self-employed was used for the analysis. The final sample consisted of 598 respondents. The findings suggest that work-co-family spillover is more common for women than men. However, the workplace stressor and resources in this study had less direct influence on work-co-family spillover for women than for men. In shore, an adequate explanation of work-to-family spillover is likely more complex for women than for men. The findings also generally supported the theoretical model. That is, workplace stressors, workplace resources, and family perceptions generally had an effect on work-co-family spillover. Interestingly, formal workplace resources, such as family-friendly programs, had only a small effect on work-to-family spillover. However, exploring spillover from a family-co-work direction would have possibly yielded different results. Informal resources had only modest direct effects on work-tofamily spillover, but indirect effects were practically important. General perception had the strongest direct effect on work-to-family spillover for both men and women.