Effects of work–family culture on employee well-being: Exploring moderator effects in a longitudinal sample

Abstract

This present panel study had three aims: (1) to shed new light on the work–family culture (WFC)–well-being (work–family conflict, work engagement, job exhaustion) linkage by investigating lagged associations between the phenomena; (2) to consider the multidimensional nature of WFC by specifying whether its lagged effects on well-being would vary by its dimensions; and (3) to explore whether the positive aspects of WFC would prevent its negative ones from spilling over into employee well-being. The study was based on a 2-year longitudinal sample (N = 409) gathered among Finnish health care workers. The results showed that WFC was a bidimensional construct containing both negative (work–family barriers) and positive (work–family support) facets. Only its positive facets (work–family support) showed a lagged negative effect on the outcomes studied (work–family conflict). No signs of moderator effects were observed.

Keywords:

• Work–family culture
• Employee well-being
• Longitudinal study
• Moderator effects

Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the Academy of Finland (grant no. 125 422), the Finnish Work Environment Fund (grant no. 102 289), and the Emil Aaltonen Foundation.