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Article Excerpt
Work-family conflict has received a lot of attention from researchers and the public recently. Most studies have been conducted in Western countries (e.g. Adams, King, & King, 1996; Duxbury, Higgins, Lee, & Mills, 1992; Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992; Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1999; Gutek, Searle, & Klepa, 1991) with limited investigations in other regions of the world (e.g. Aryee & Luk, 1996a, 1996b; Yang, Chen, Choi, & Zou, 2000). Generally, most of the studies conducted outside the USA have been based on existing frameworks developed from a Western perspective. Underlying this perspective is an implicit assumption that work and family are distinct domains. When role expectations from these two domains are mutually incompatible, inter-role stress occurs (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964). Historically, researchers have highlighted changing socioeconomic conditions as an impetus to work-family conflict. Such changes, however, are not limited to Western countries and many individuals in developed and developing countries around the world experience difficulties balancing the work and family domains (Joplin, Shaffer, Francesco, & Lau, 2003).
In this paper, we examine work-family conflict within the context of Hong Kong, which is a modern Chinese city with a workforce of about 2 million. The high cost of living in Hong Kong has forced many married women into the workforce, and consequently, the number of dual-earner families has increased. Based on the Hong Kong Annual Digest of Statistics (1995), in 1994 the rate of participation in the labour force was 77.6% for men and 47.1% for women. In 2003 the rate of participation in the labour force for men and women was 74.4% and 49.4%, respectively (Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, 2004). At the same time, the participation rates among married women continued to expand, so that by 2001 over 50% had entered the workforce. Other relevant shifts, such as increased numbers of women in managerial and professional positions and greater educational attainments for women, have also occurred in Hong Kong. Corresponding shifts in social roles and responsibilities, however, have not kept pace. Social roles in Hong Kong have remained very traditional, with women assuming primary responsibility of child and home care. Movement toward increased sharing of family responsibilities has been minimal (Aryee, 1993; Yalom, 2000), with working parents relying on the extended family or live-in domestic helpers to care for children.
Although changes in socio-economic conditions across countries are comparable, how employees in different countries experience work-family conflict may be culturally bound. According to Trompenaars and Hampton-Turner (1998), cultures differ in terms of how they segregate life roles such as work and family. Cultures with specific values (e.g. the USA and the UK) keep work and family relationships separate, whereas diffuse cultures (e.g. China and Korea) integrate the two domains. Consequently, Chinese tradition views work as more important than leisure, and as contributing to family welfare instead of competing with it (Redding, 1993; Redding & Wong, 1986). Chinese assign lower importance to sufficient time for personal and family life than do Westerners (Redding, 1993) because the most important function of the individual is in the maintenance and preservation of the household. In addition, Chinese society is influenced by the philosophical traditions of Confucianism, and these play an important part in how Chinese view work and family. The key Confucian principles consist of interpersonal harmony (aspiration toward a conflict-free system of social relations), hierarchy (consciousness of personal position in the social system), and collectivism (rejection of personal aggrandizement as a threat to established group hierarchies; King & Bond, 1985). Together, these distinctive cultural characteristics of Hong Kong Chinese suggest the need for a more complex consideration of work and family domain variables.
Our purpose is to develop and test an expanded model of the work-family interface that considers both within- and cross-domain influences on conflict emanating from the work and family domains (i.e. work interference with family and family interference with work). According to role stress theory (e.g. Kahn et al., 1964), stressors in one domain can influence stresses in another. Given the enhanced permeability of boundaries between work and family domains in Hong Kong, our first objective is to explicitly consider the direct effects of work and family demands and resources on two forms of work-family conflict: work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW). Role stress theory also asserts that resources may buffer the influence of stressors on work-family conflict and that demands may exacerbate the effects (e.g. Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1986). Again, considering the less distinct borders between work and family for Chinese and the importance of hierarchy, we look at the interactive relationships of work and family support resources and stressors both within and across domains. For within-domain relationships, we expect support resources to buffer or attenuate the influence of stressors on work-family conflict. However, for cross-domain relationships, we contend that resources from the opposing domain become a demand that exacerbates the influence of stressors on work--family conflict. We test these within- and cross-domain relationships with multi-source data from a matched sample of Hong Kong employees and their spouses.
Development of a model of work-family conflict
The proposed theoretical framework is presented in Fig. 1. This model is based on a bi-dimensional conceptualization of work-family conflict. According to recent studies (Aryee, Fields, & Luk, 1999a; Carlson, Kacmar, & Williams, 2000), work-family conflict is multidimensional, with effects from the work domain influencing WIF conflict and effects from the family domain influencing FIW conflict. Based on the cultural differences between the East and the West and the less distinct boundaries of work and family in Chinese society, we believe that each form of conflict will have both domain-specific (i.e. work stressors and support will influence WIF, and family stressors and support will influence FIW) and domain-spanning antecedents (i.e. work stressors and support will influence FIW, and family stressors and support will influence WIF). Building upon Western studies and taking into consideration different social and cultural conditions in Hong Kong, we expand current conceptualizations of work-family conflict and anticipate complex (within- and cross-domain) interactive effects for work and family domain support resources.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
In the next sections, we develop hypotheses for the direct influence of work- and family-domain stressors and support on work-family conflict (i.e. WIF and FIW). The proposed relationships are based on stress theories, such as Hobfoll's (1989) conservation of resources model, which posit that stressors in the form of excessive demands or insufficient resources will result in stressful outcomes such as work-family conflict. In addition, we believe greater demands, regardless of the domain from which they emanate, will lead to greater conflict. We then consider competing arguments for the within- and cross-domain moderating effects of work and family support resources. Within domains, domain-specific resources will buffer the effects of stressors on work-family conflict. In developing hypotheses for cross-domain effects, however, we argue that a resource in one domain may become a demand when considered from the perspective of another domain. Consequently, cross-domain resources will aggravate the impact of stressors on work-family conflict.
Direct effects of work and family influences on WIF and FIW
Work domain stressors and support
In this section, we consider two job demands (time commitment and work role expectations) that have been associated with WIE Time commitment to work refers to the actual number of hours spent at work. Work role expectations are defined as perceived pressures on an individual to assume work role responsibilities. According to Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), pressures associated with one type of role (e.g. work) make it physically impossible to comply with expectations arising from other roles (e.g. family). This is consistent with Hobfoll's (1989) conservation of resources theory, which argues that time and energy are exhaustible commodities; once spent they are not available for other tasks either within the same domain or other domains. In other words, higher demands and expectations in one role (e.g. work) result in fewer resources for other roles (e.g. family). Research strongly supports the influence of time commitment to work (e.g. Burke, Weir, & DuWors, 1980; Frone, Yardley, & Markel, 1997; Pleck, Staines, & Lang, 1980) and work role expectations (Higgins, Duxbury, & Irving, 1992) on WIF. Although previous researchers have not considered the relationship between work stressors and FIW, we contend that these demands will also affect this form of work-family conflict. As time and energy demands in the work place increase, more opportunities exist for family to intrude on this domain. From a cultural perspective, blurred boundaries between family and work for Chinese enhance the likelihood that high commitment to work, in terms of time and/or expectations, will affect both WIF and FIW. Thus, we propose:
Hypotheses 1a-b. Time commitment to work is a significant positive predictor of (a) WIF, and...
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