Effects of work–family and family–work conflicts on flexible work arrangements demand: a gender role perspective

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of firms have adopted flexible work arrangements (FWAs) to help managers balance their work–family demands. Based on a sample of 1336 married managers in Korea, we found that work–family conflict increased the FWAs demand more for female managers than for male managers. When facing work–family conflict, the absence of family-supportive supervision increased the demand for FWAs, particularly among female managers. No such effect was found for family–work conflict. In addition, having a female supervisor led to an increased demand for FWAs from company managers. These results suggest that firms should pay close attention to gender difference and supervisory roles in predicting the demand for FWAs to alleviate work–family conflicts.

Keywords:

• Flexible work arrangements (FWAs)
• work–family conflicts
• family-supportive supervision
• gender difference

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the research program of Dongguk University, 2015.

Notes

1. For example, homeworking, alternative work scheduling and part-time work are available, and the respondents indicated that two FWAs (telecommuting, flextime) received scores of 2 and another two FWAs (compressed workweek and core working hours) received scores of 4. The FWAs demand is the average of three 0s and two 2s and two 4s divided by seven, which equals 1.51 (0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 4 = 12/7).

2. For example, flextime, compressed workweek, telecommuting and core working hours were available. Another three FWAs, such as homeworking, alternative work scheduling and part-time work were not available. The availability of FWAs is the sum of three 1s and four 0s divided by seven equals to .42 (3/7).