Unpaid Professional Work at Home and Work-Life Interference among Employees with Care Responsibilities

Abstract

Employees with caregiving responsibilities often experience work-life interference (WLI), particularly when caring for either disabled persons and/or children. This study examines sample of 288 working Australians from the AWALI national survey data, who care for at least one family member or friend with long-term physical or mental illness, disability, or aging-related problems. We investigated the role of unpaid work at home in predicting WLI, based on a model that included indirect association via inferred causes for working unpaid hours at home and a conditional direct relationship based on number of children. The findings supported our prediction that unpaid work at home is positively associated with WLI but its effect is moderated by number of children. There was a conditional direct effect where employees with care responsibilities experienced a stronger relationship between unpaid hours and WLI when having more children. Further, when the perceived reason for unpaid work was excessively demanding work, the relationship with WLI was stronger. Implications for workers with multiple caregiving responsibilities are discussed.

Keywords:

• Unpaid work
• work-life interference
• causal attribution
• family care
• stress

Conflict of Interest

The authors of this article declare no conflict of interest.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Lily Chernyak-Hai, upon request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lily Chernyak-Hai

Lily Chernyak-Hai is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Business Administration, Peres Academic Center. Her research areas focus on inter-personal and inter-group helping behavior. In recent years, she has expanded her research interests to the domains of Organizational and Industrial psychology examining the role of socio-psychological factors in organizational behavior.

Erich C. Fein

Erich C. Fein is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland. His work is based in national and international research teams and concerns psychological constructs and processes related to occupational health outcomes, leadership, and motivation.

Natalie Skinner

Natalie Skinner is a Senior Research Fellow at NCETA, Flinders University. Her research addresses health and well-being in the workplace, with a particular emphasis on psychological health, job quality, and work-life interaction.

Andrew J. Knox

Andrew J. Knox obtained a Bachelor of Science (Hons) with a major in Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland. He also holds a Master of Human Resource Management through Charles Sturt University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Education (Primary) through Deakin University.

James Brown

James Brown completed his undergraduate training at QUT in Brisbane and a Master of Psychology program through Swinburne University in Melbourne. His main teaching areas are in post graduate training for Clinical Psychology students. James’ research interests are in the area of fatherhood and the importance of relationship closeness between fathers and their children.