Work–family conflict among Black, White, and Hispanic men and women

ABSTRACT

Are there racial/ethnic differences in work–family conflict? Using a nationally representative survey of Americans, we analyze differences in work–family conflict among Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics and then utilize an intersectional approach, disaggregating men and women within each racial/ethnic group. Using structural equation modeling, we find that the usual predictors of conflict – family and work characteristics – have varied effects on work–family conflict among men and women of different racial/ethnic groups. Nonstandard schedules were uniformly linked to increased work-to-family conflict among all respondents, regardless of subgroup. Our findings reveal the merits of intersectional approaches, and suggest the need for theoretical models of the work–family interface that better reflect the experiences of men and women of color.

RESUMEN

¿Existen diferencias étnico-raciales en las experiencias de conflicto trabajo-familia? Usando una muestra representativa de la población estadounidense, analizamos las diferencias de conflicto trabajo-familia entre la población negra, blanca e hispana, y luego utilizamos una perspectiva interseccional, desagregando los resultados entre hombres y mujeres de cada grupo étnico-racial. Usando un modelo de ecuación estructural, encontramos que los predictores típicos de conflicto – características de familia y del trabajo – tienen efectos variados en el conflicto trabajo-familia entre hombres y mujeres de diferentes grupos étnico-raciales. Los horarios de trabajo no tradicionales están uniformemente relacionados con el incremento del conflicto trabajo-familia para todos los encuestados independientemente del subgrupo al que pertenezcan. Nuestros resultados revelan el mérito de la perspectiva de interseccionalidad, y sugieren la necesidad de modelos teóricos de la interfaz trabajo-familia que mejor reflejen las experiencias de los hombres y mujeres de color.

KEYWORDS:

• Work and family
• race
• ethnicity
• gender

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• Trabajo y familia
• raza
• etnicidad
• género

Acknowledgements

Data are from the NSRFL (Penny Edgell, Christopher Ellison, W. Bradford Wilcox, co-Principal Investigators). We are grateful to members of the UNO Sociology Research Triangle, who provided feedback on earlier drafts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Samantha K. Ammons is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Her research investigates work–family conflict, gender, and work–family boundaries within organizational settings.

Eric C. Dahlin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Brigham Young University. He studies organizational and institutional change and how these changes impact employees.

Penny Edgell is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, who received her doctorate from the University of Chicago. She is a cultural sociologist who studies how religion shapes cultural frames and symbolic boundaries that influence dynamics of social inclusion and exclusion along the lines of family, gender, and race.

Jonathan Santo is a professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who received his doctorate from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His research interests include adolescent identity development, moderators of the depressive effects of peer victimization, and cross-cultural differences in peer relations.

Notes

1 In the full sample, 732 respondents were not employed at the time of the survey. The employed sample had higher income, was more likely to be white, less likely to be Hispanic, more likely to work full time, and was more likely to have a college degree than the full sample (results available upon request). Our employed sample does include some respondents who have missing household income data (147 cases). We ran the final constrained model using only participants with complete income data and the resulting model still had the same significant effects and remained a good fit to the data (χ² ₍₁₅₈₎ = 147.97, p > .05, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .012, SRMR = .030). Moreover, we ran t-tests to compare those who are missing income data to those who are not on all of the variables in the model (predictors and the outcomes) and found minimal differences. Those missing income data were significantly lower in work-to-family conflict (p < .05), and were less likely to be college graduates or have gone to graduate school (p < .05).

2 There were only modest differences in the Cronbach α scores across subgroups. For the family-to-work conflict scale: White men (.694), White women (.777), Black men (.689), Black women (.744), Hispanic men (.710), and Hispanic women (.781). For the work-to-family conflict scale: White men (.758), White women (.830), Black men (.749), Black women (.793), Hispanic men (.802), and Hispanic women (.807).

3 Although our gender ideology scale had a low α for our sample, it was not very different from the alpha reported by Roehling et al. (2005) in their study of racial/ethnic differences in work–family conflict (their α coefficient for gender ideology was .50).

4 Respondents to our survey were asked to self-classify and choose the race with which they most closely identify; there were no multi-racial response options and we did not ask a follow-up question about ethnicity. Most likely, our measure captures differences in ethnicity and culture as well as different experiences in interacting with the major organizations and institutions (schools, employers, the government) that people encounter on a daily basis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Lily Endowment [2002 2301-000].