Antecedents of Work-Family Conflict within Higher Education Setting

Abstract

This study examined the potential antecedents of multidimensional work-family conflict in a sample of 828 academic staff. Following previous meta-analyses, antecedents of work-family conflict were categorized into three domains as individual/demographic (e.g., gender), work (e.g., work role overload), and nonwork/family (e.g., family role overload) variables. Multidimensional Work Family Conflict Scale (MWFCS) was used to measure each three types (time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based) of work-family and family-work conflict. After controlling for individual and family domain variables, work domain variables added significant variance in predicting all types of work-family conflict. Similarly, after controlling for individual and work domain variables, family domain variables added significant variance in predicting family-work conflict variables, except for behavior-based family-work conflict. Implications of these findings for practice and future research on work-family conflict were discussed.