Keeping work and private life apart: Age‐related differences in managing the work–nonwork interface

• Published date: 01 December 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2283
• Author: Christian Stamov Roßnagel,Susanne Scheibe,Ines Spieler
• Date: 01 December 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Keeping work and private life apart: Age‐related differences in

managing the work–nonwork interface

Ines Spieler

1,2

|Susanne Scheibe

3

|Christian Stamov Roßnagel

1

1

Department of Psychology and Methods,

Jacobs University Bremen, Bremen, Germany

2

Bremen International Graduate School of

Social Sciences, Jacobs University Bremen,

Bremen, Germany

3

Department of Psychology, University of

Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Correspondence

Ines Spieler, Paracelsus Medical University

Nuremberg, Prof.‐Ernst‐Nathan‐Str. 1, 90419

Nuremberg, Germany.

Email: ines.spieler@pmu.ac.at

Funding information

Bremen International Graduate School of

Social Sciences; Heymans Institute at the

University of Groningen

Summary

Initial evidence suggests that older workers enjoy higher work–life balance than

young workers. Yet little is known about the mechanisms of this effect or the robust-

ness of age differences when accounting for differences in life context. We introduce

and test the boundary management account of aging and work–life balance, which

suggests that older workers maintain stronger work–nonwork boundaries as a path-

way toward work–life balance. Both in Study 1 (cross‐sectional; N= 298 bank

employees) and in Study 2 (aggregated diary entries; N= 608 workers), older workers

reported better work–life balance and stronger boundaries at work than young

workers; and stronger boundaries at home (Study 1). In both studies, stronger bound-

aries were related to better work–life balance, and boundary strength mediated the

relationship between age and work–life balance. Study 2 additionally suggests that

the use of boundary management strategies is responsible for stronger boundaries

at higher age. Analyses accounted for differences in family and work context charac-

teristics (both studies) and boundary preferences (Study 1). The findings corroborate

evidence of older workers' enhanced work–life balance and suggest that it results

from more successful boundary management with age rather than merely from

changes in contextual factors or boundary preferences.

KEYWORDS

boundary management strategies, life domainborders, work–family conflict, work–family

enrichment, work–family spillover

1|INTRODUCTION

The concept of work–life balance refers to the perception that role‐

related expectations, which are negotiated between individuals and

their role‐related partners in work and nonwork domains, are accom-

plished (Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007). Work–life balance is vital for

working adults' long‐term well‐being (Eby, Casper, Lockwood,

Bordeaux, & Brinley, 2005). Meta‐analytic evidence suggests, for

instance, that interference between work and nonwork life domains

is associated with lower work and career satisfaction, job perfor-

mance, and marital and family satisfaction. Further, such interference

is associated with higher psychological strain, somatic symptoms,

and substance abuse (Allen, Herst, Bruck, & Sutton, 2000; Amstad,

Meier, Fasel, Elfering, & Semmer, 2011). Consequently, work–life

balance has become a concern beyond the individual company level;

it appears on the agendas of policy makers who seek to develop poli-

cies for various target groups such as young families, (single) mothers,

or low‐skilled workers (The Council of Economic Advisers, 2014).

One of those target groups are older workers whose numbers

have been increasing considerably in recent years. Many people need

to work later in life to support themselves during a longer retirement

(Toossi, 2012). At the same time, older workers face increasing

demands in the nonwork domain. Delayed childbearing and longer life

expectancy lead to “sandwiching”adults in later middle age between

the competing demands of caring for children as well as aging parents

(Population Reference Bureau, 2016). In fact, almost two thirds of

Ines Spieler is now at the Paracelsus Medical University Nuremberg, Germany.

Received: 8 September 2016 Revised: 23 February 2018 Accepted: 7 March 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2283

J Organ Behav. 2018;39:1233–1251. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 1233

adults providing eldercare are in paid employment (The Council of

Economic Advisers, 2014). In sum, later working life has begun to

change from a period of slowly “phasing out”to a rather active career

stage that places multiple demands on older workers.

The multiple demands from work and nonwork life in later phases

of people's careers co‐occur with noticeable decline in workers' cogni-

tive and physical resources (see Ng & Feldman, 2013). Accordingly,

one may assume that older workers experience particular challenges

in navigating between work and nonwork domains. Yet existing

evidence suggests otherwise. Although few studies have directly

addressed work–family dynamics across the lifespan (for a review,

see Thrasher, Zabel, Wynne, & Baltes, 2015), several recent studies

found older workers to report higher work–life balance than their

younger colleagues (Hill, Erickson, Fellows, Martinengo, & Allen,

2014; Richert‐Kazmierska & Stankiewicz, 2016; Tausig & Fenwick,

2001), as well as lower work–nonwork interference (Allen &

Finkelstein, 2014; Hill et al., 2014).

Although these prior studies reported positive relationships

between worker age and work–life balance, in most of these studies,

age was not a focal variable. Consequently, little is known about the

underlying mechanisms. Research on work–family dynamics suggests

that work–life balance is strongly influenced by the strengths of

boundaries employees set up to separate work from nonwork domains

of life. In general, drawing a clear line between work and private life

facilitates work–life balance and prevents interference (Allen, Cho, &

Meier, 2014). In search of explanations for positive age trends in

work–nonwork dynamics, we draw on this literature to introduce

and test the active boundary management account of aging and

work–life balance. Integrating both lifespan and work–family litera-

tures, our hypothesis is that compared with young workers, older

workers achieve higher work–life balance and less interference by

actively managing work–nonwork boundaries to keep life domains

more separated. We suggest that keeping stronger boundaries

between life domains reflects older adults' regulatory response to

declining cognitive resources and their enhanced motivation and

expertise to maintain well‐being.

The current study makes three primary contributions to the liter-

ature. First, we report findings from two studies of workers from the

banking sector (Study 1) and from multiple occupational sectors (Study

2) that corroborate evidence of a positive association between worker

age and indicators of work–life balance. Given the scarcity of work–

family research from a lifespan perspective, these findings increase

confidence that older workers may indeed experience the interplay

of work and nonwork lives more favorably than younger workers do.

Second, we present and test a hitherto unexplored mechanism under-

lying higher work–life balance with age. Specifically, we show that

older workers draw a clearer line between work and nonwork life

domains than young workers do, which subsequently benefits their

work–life balance. Therefore, our findings provide new insight into

how the aging of the workforce affects employees' occupational

health and long‐term well‐being. Finally, extending prior research that

is limited to examining the interference between life domains in older

workers (Ng & Feldman, 2012), we explored whether and how age dif-

ferences in boundary strength would affect work–nonwork enhance-

ment, referring to synergies emerging from the engagement in

multiple life domains, as a form of positive work–nonwork interactions

(Graves, Ohlott, & Ruderman, 2007).

1

1.1 |Boundary management and work–life balance

According to work–family boundary theory (Ashforth, Kreiner, &

Fugate, 2000), work and nonwork are separate life domains demar-

cated by cognitive, physical, and behavioral boundaries (Clark, 2000;

Kreiner, 2006). A life domain is associated with distinct roles, for

example, being a manager or craftsman in the work domain and a par-

ent or friend in the nonwork domain (Ashforth et al., 2000). Yet work

and nonwork domains interact as workers transition their boundaries

at work and at home (e.g., when workers answer work‐related calls

or e‐mails in the restaurant during dinner time or write an email to a

friend during a work meeting; Matthews, Barnes‐Farrell, & Bulger,

2010). Workers have been shown to manage their work–nonwork

boundaries using various strategies such as refraining from talking

about private matters at work or refraining from synchronizing work

emails on their private computers (e.g., Kreiner, Hollensbe, & Sheep,

2009). Using such strategies enhances the strength of boundaries

between life domains. Importantly, earlier research suggests that

boundaries can be asymmetrical: Some workers' private issues may

regularly infiltrate work life (weak boundaries at work), but their

work‐related issues may rarely creep into their private life (strong

boundaries at home; Ashforth et al., 2000; Clark, 2000; Spieler,

Scheibe, Stamov‐Roßnagel, & Kappas, 2017).

Whether strong work–nonwork boundaries benefit workers and

organizations partly depends on individual preferences for boundary

strength or the fit of preferences with actual boundary strength

(Edwards & Rothbard, 1999; Kreiner, 2006). Nevertheless, work–fam-

ily research suggests that overall, strong work–nonwork boundaries

are associated with favorable individual and organizational outcomes

(for reviews, see Allen et al., 2014; Grzywacz & Demerouti, 2013).

For example, workers with strong boundaries reported less stress

and burnout (Etzion, Eden, & Lapidot, 1998), better psychological

well‐being (Desrochers, Hilton, & Larwood, 2005; Michel, Bosch, &

Rexroth, 2014; Spieler et al., 2017), less interference of work and non-

work (e.g., Desrochers et al., 2005; Olson‐Buchanan & Boswell, 2006;

Park & Jex, 2011), and better work–life balance (Li, Miao, Zhao, &

Lehto, 2013). Given the link between boundaries and work–life bal-

ance, we reasoned that a differential management of work–nonwork

boundaries may constitute one possible mechanism underlying age

differences in work–life balance and interference.

1.2 |Age differences in boundary management

From a lifespan developmental perspective, older workers are likely to

actively create stronger work–nonwork boundaries than young

workers do. This may reflect older workers' response to three major

age‐related changes. First, age‐related decline in fluid cognitive

resources may increase the importance of maintaining strong

1

Note that in keeping with current standards in work and aging research, we do

not adopt a specific age cut‐off for defining older workers, which would neces-

sarily be arbitrary (Hertel & Zacher, 2015). Instead, we treat age as a continuous

variable and use the labels “younger”,“middle‐aged”, and “older worker”in a

merely descriptive manner.

1234 SPIELER ET AL.