S2 2018, Distinction
I am an ambitious female who wants to become a CFO one day, but also a female who may want to have a family of her own. Hence, the possibility of perfectly balancing both work and family has always been a conundrum of mine. However, a research study conducted by a group of PhD students from University of Porto in 2011 has achieved to successfully broaden my perspectives on this matter. Matias et al. (2017) establishes the link between parents’ work–family conflict (WFC) and children’s emotion-regulation (ER) through parents’ psychological availability (PA).
Early childhood is a pivotal period where individuals develop their ER skills (i.e. the ability to modulate and express one’s emotions). Previous studies have suggested that ER skills have been linked to a child’s later well-being, and in extreme cases, to various categories of psychopathology. Hence, it is desirable for parents to be psychologically available (i.e. have the ability and motivation to supply cognitive and emotional resources) to their child, which acts as a mediating mechanism to build positive parent-child interactions. However, when a parent experiences WFC (i.e. perceives that his or her work is hindering the family roles), this will impede psychological detachment from work and deplete their mental capacity to focus on the child during nonwork time. This is especially problematic in dual-earner families as neither parent can devote attention to the child.
The study aims to assess the impact of the parents’ work-life balance on child’s ER skills by postulating spillover (intraindividual) and crossover (interindividual) effects; this estimates the links between each parent’s WFC and their psychological availability to the child (actor effects), and each parent’s WFC and the other partner’s PA (partner effects) respectively. The research evidence was collected from 138 heterosexual dual-earner couples with preschool-age children in Porto, Portugal.
The findings have corroborated all of the hypotheses (Figure 1): that parents’ WFC associates negatively with their PA to a significant extent (H1); the link between PA and child’s ER skills had a significant trend (H2); Parents’ WFC had no direct link to the child’s emotion-regulation or lability (H3) but had indirect effects on ER through the partner’s (other parent; H5) PA or the actor’s PA (same parent; H3).
However, the H4a: ‘mothers’ WFC on fathers’ PA has stronger effect than vice versa’ was flawed. The crossover findings were bidirectional, and independent of the parents’ gender. This may be due to recent changes in gender roles, where “new” father role accounts for both economy and caretaking. Thus, work-family balance is a task upheld at the couple level.
This paper has contributed in finding scarce information not addressed in the past researches, namely the crossover of WFC and parenting and the specific role of PA (Matias et al., 2017). The critical aspect analysed in the paper is the dyadic level of each parent’s work–family balance, which is necessary to thoroughly investigate the interdependence between the two parents’ relationship with children.
The paper outlines three key limitations that need to be considered when interpreting the results. Firstly, the reported data are cross-sectional, meaning causal relation cannot be completely established. Secondly, the utilisation of self-reports may result in some forms of reporting bias. Lastly, some measures revealed fewer adequacies in internal consistency (i.e. WFC and ER). The authors also mentioned the peculiarity in indirect partner effects being stronger than indirect actor effects. Matias et al. (2017) advises that future research should attempt to replicate their finding by using observational measures - assessed by independent observers and; longitudinal or daily diary methods - to examine daily changes in WFC and in parent-child interactions.
The research paper has completely changed my view on work-family balance. I forgot the fact that child rearing is a responsibility for both parents and I shouldn’t be the only one stressing about having to balance the work and family roles. It was also refreshing to see that partners do influence each other’s psychological availability. It is indeed difficult to find the perfect equilibrium for work and life but with the reconstructed gender roles, with assistance from each other’s partner and by restoring resources after work it is possible.
Reference:
Matias, M., Ferreira, T., Vieira, J., Cadima, J., Leal, T., & M. Matos, P. (2017). Work-family conflict, PA, and child emotion regulation: Spillover and crossover in dual-earner families. Personal Relationships, 24(3), 623-639. https://doi.org/10.1111/pere.12198
Commentaires