Links Between Work–Family Conflict, Enrichment, and Adolescent Well‐Being: Parents' and Children's Perspectives

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Marisa Matias,Joana Recharte
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12453

M M J RUniversity of Porto

Links Between Work–Family Conict, Enrichment,

and Adolescent Well-Being: Parents’ and

Children’s Perspectives

Objective: To analyze both parents’ and

adolescents’ perspectives on work–family

conict (WFC) and enrichment (WFE) and its

crossover to adolescent well-being, via quality

of parent–child relationships.

Background: Parents’ work and family expe-

riences are associated with parenting and may

crossover to adolescent well-being. Adoles-

cents’ outcomes and perceptions about parents’

work–family balance have been disregarded,

despite acknowledgment of adolescence as a

crucial developmental period.

Method: A convenience sample of 209

dual-earner families including both couple

members and their adolescent children (aged

13–18 years) participated. WFC, WFE, and

parent–child relationship dimensions (coercion,

autonomy support, and warmth) were addressed

by both parents’ and adolescent perspectives,

while adolescent well-being was assessed using

children’s report. A nested design and dyadic

data analyses with SEM were used.

Results: Mothers’ WFC and both parents’ WFE

were signicantly associated with the quality of

the relationships with children, and only moth-

ers’ WFC was indirectly linked to the well-being

Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da

Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen 4200-135 Porto,

Portugal (marisa@fpce.up.pt).

Key Words: adolescents, dyadic analyses, family systems,

parent–child relationship, well-being, work–family conict,

work–family enrichment.

of adolescents. The perceptions of adolescents

show that both parents’ WFE was linked to the

quality of the relationship with children, but

only mothers’ WFE was indirectly linked to the

well-being of adolescents.

Conclusion: These ndings emphasize adoles-

cents’ critical perspective over their parents’

work–family interface and highlight the impor-

tance of considering multiple informants in

research.

Implications: Practitioners may use these

ndings to foster a sensible approach on

how the work–family interface interferes with

parent–adolescent relationship, diminishing

strains rooted on parents’ perspective. Dis-

cussion groups on work–family linkages and

vocational programs that allow adolescents

to think critically about their parents’ work

experiences and how it affects them.

As a dual-earner family paradigm arises in most

societies, individuals have been seeking a wayto

be simultaneously productive in the professional

world and effective in their family sphere. It is

acknowledged that what happens in one of these

domains can positively or negatively affect the

other domain in a process of spillover (Grzywacz

& Marks,2000; Lambert,1990). Research on

the work–family interface has emerged in recent

decades with the intent of providing explana-

tions on how the two roles are interplayed by the

individual, but also by the close others, in a pro-

cess of crossover (Westman, 2001).

840Family Relations 70 (July 2021): 840–858

DOI:10.1111/fare.12453

Work–Family Conict, Enrichment, and Adolescent Well-Being841

While families with toddlers or young

children have been progressively included in

recent analyses on the work–family interface,

families with adolescents have received little

attention (Lawson et al., 2014), and so, too,

has adolescents’ perceptions on how parents

articulate work and family roles (Tisdale &

Pitt-Catsouphes, 2012). To focus on adolescents

is particularly relevant because this age group

continues to benet from high-quality parenting

and also is more able than younger children to

provide their own accounts of the family situ-

ation. Indeed, children are aware of how work

affects their parents’ lives, which is expressed,

for example, in the wishes they convey con-

cerningtheirparents’work(Galinsky, 1999)

and in their concerns about the economic

situation of their family (UNICEF,2013).

Embodying adolescent views emphasizes

their agency and perspective on the issue of

work–family interface and responds to calls for

more research from children’s point of view

(e.g., Galinsky, 1999; Perry-Jenkins, Repetti, &

Crouter, 2000).

Previous work–family research mostly has

been focused on (a) studying the intraindividual

transference of stress across work and family

(work–family conict; WFC), without system-

atically considering both negative and positive

perspectives (work–family enrichment; WFE)

nor the interdependence between members of

a family; (b) how work–family dynamics inu-

ence parenting and young children’s behavior,

disregarding other important life stages of chil-

dren, such as adolescence; and (c) parents’ per-

ceptions of their own work–family interface and

of its inuence on their children’s well-being,

overlooking the children’s views on parental

work–family balance. To ll in these gaps, in

this study, we propose an analysis of both par-

ents’ and children’s perspectives on how work

and family are interplayed, as well as its impact

on adolescents’ well-being, via parent–child

relationships.

Our approach is useful and innovative in a

two ways. First, it allows us to address how

intraindividual experiences, such as WFC and

WFE, shape the individual’s own quality of

the parent–adolescent relationship and the part-

ner’s quality of parenting, further linking it to

adolescents’ well-being. These linkages are

supported in current, although meager, evidence

of crossover processes between dual-earner

couple members, and it further supplements

available evidence by stressing the linkages

with adolescent children. Second, this approach

allows for comparisons of the same process

(WFC and WFE linkages to parenting and

adolescent well-being), taking into account

the perspectives of parents and adolescents.

The distinction of these two standpoints may

contribute to a renement in the current state

of the art and research on what may be more

important in determining the well-being of

adolescents.

W–F C  E: A

S A

According to ecological and family systems

theories, family is a dynamic system composed

of several individuals and inuenced by the

constant changes that occur in the environment

and in individuals (Cox & Paley,1997). Both

work and family experiences can affect the

system’s stability and identity, given that both

domains are seen as a function of processes,

people, contexts, and temporal characteristics

that, together, create an accumulative and inter-

active effect(Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Grzywacz

& Marks,2000). Initial research on the work

and family interface neglected this dynamic

interaction, but it is now broadly acknowledged

that work and family are not independent and

segmented domains of an individual’slife. How-

ever, prior studies focused almost entirely on

role strain, where the core of the work–family

interface was centered on how both domains

would compete for an individual’s limited

resources, such as time and psychological or

physical energy to cope with everyday difcul-

ties (for reviews, see Bianchi & Milkie,2010;

Byron, 2005;Perry-Jenkins et al., 2000).From

this standpoint, WFC has been dened as “a

form of inter-role conict in which the role

pressures from the work and family domains

are mutually incompatible in some respect”

(Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985, p. 77).

Greenhaus and Powell(2006) proposed a

comprehensive theoretical framework focused

on the positive synergies that may derive from

the fulllment of multiple roles. Therefore, WFE

refers to the extent to which the participation

in one domain or role improves performance

or enhances positive affect in another role

(Greenhaus &Powell, 2006). Both conict and

enrichment can occur from either role (i.e.,

work or family) and operate in either direction.