Self- and Spouse-Reported Work–Family Conflict and Dual-Earners’ Job Satisfaction

Abstract

We add to the literature on job satisfaction by examining the role played by self-reported and spouse-reported work–family conflict for dual-earner husbands and wives (N = 156 couples, 312 individuals), a contagion model of work and family. Two path models of job satisfaction were tested: a spillover model, including the respondent's work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, and a crossover model, including the spouse's perception of the respondent's work-to-family conflict. Workplace and family/respondent characteristics were also included in the models. For wives, job satisfaction is associated with family-to-work conflict (spillover). For husbands, job satisfaction is associated with his spouse's perception of his work-to-family conflict (crossover). For both husbands and wives, coworker support is both directly and indirectly associated with job satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• conflict
• marriage
• role conflict
• work and family

Notes

For t tests between the means, significant differences are noted by *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

^a Respondent's income is measured ordinally. For a description of results in real dollars, see Methods.