Social Policy Research Paper Number 30

Contents

• Executive summary
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Methodological and data issues
• 3. Employment patterns and job characteristics
• 4. Child care and employment
• 5. Time use and activities with children
• 6. Income, financial hardship and perceived prosperity
• 7. Work–family spillover
• 8. Employment and wellbeing
• 9. Conclusion
• Appendix A: Comparison of LSAC and ABS employment estimates
• Appendix B: Employment tables
• Appendix C: Child care tables
• Appendix D: Wellbeing multivariate results
• Endnotes
• References
• List of tables
• List of boxes

7. Work–family spillover

• 7.1 Data and measures
• 7.2 Elements of work–family gains
• 7.3 Elements of work–family strains
• 7.4 Working hours and the impact of work on family life and family life on work
• 7.5 Summary

The literature surrounding work and family balance recognises that the interplay between the work and home environments is crucial to the understanding of individual and family wellbeing. It has long been recognised that events that affect the feelings, attitudes and experiences of a parent in either the family or work environment can 'spill over' into other spheres of a parent's life and that of their family. This spillover can be positive or negative and can impact in either direction.

For example, stress at work can result in tensions within the family because parents are unable to devote the necessary time or energy to maintain family relationships. Equally, difficulties with relationships within the family have the potential to affect an individual's capacity to perform within the workplace environment. In addition, past research has also emphasised that work often has positive relationships with parenting (Barnett & Hyde 2001) and self-perception (Barnett, Marshall & Pleck 1992; Marks & MacDermid 1996).

This section focuses on the direct effects of paid employment on family life (work-to-family spillover and the effects of work on parenting and work on self) and the effects of family life on paid employment (family-to-work spillover). Collectively, these four concepts can be summarised as work–family spillover. The next section addresses the effects of paid employment on a wider range of measures of personal and family wellbeing. This section on work–family spillover has been included because it is the measure of wellbeing that most directly draws a link between paid employment and family wellbeing.

Research into the determinants of work–family spillover can be broadly categorised into three areas. The first has focused on whether men and women experience work–family spillover to the same extent or in the same way. Early research focused on perceived innate sex differences to explain apparent differences between women and men, although this approach is less prevalent these days, partly because not all studies find these effects, and partly because more compelling reasons have emerged (Marshall & Barnett 1993; Milkie & Peltola 1999).

More recent studies have considered the extent to which parents identify with each of the family and work roles. Where identification is poor, conflict can arise leading to negative spillover effects (Cinamon and Rich 2002a; Cinamon & Rich 2002b; Westman & Etzion 1995).

The second broad area for the determinants of work–family spillover has been the differing workplace environments that confront parents and are particularly pertinent to the issues within this report. The available research has found that while long working hours may have a negative impact upon wellbeing, this is not necessarily the case (Barnett 1998; Gray et al. 2004). More important to work–family spillover than actual hours worked appears to be the nature of the work itself—in particular, the perceived 'quality', complexity and skill level of the job, as well as the degree of flexibility, job security and schedule control a worker has over their tasks. Work hours that encompass less family-friendly work schedules (evening/night work, weekend work, shift work, or excessive overtime) have been found to be associated with greater negative work–family spillover (Barnett 1998; Alexander & Baxter 2005).

The third broad area concerns the home environment and is not something dealt with in detail in this report. In summary though, work–family spillover has been found to be associated with the care needs of young children or ill or elderly relatives, the time required to perform household work, or its distribution within families (Barnett 1994; Barnett & Marshall 1992a; Barnett & Marshall 1992b; Coltrane 2001). The quality of a parent's roles within the home (as spouse or parent) has also been shown to be an influential factor (Greenstein 1996; Marshall & Barnett 1993; Milkie & Peltola 1999).

A number of these relationships with work–family spillover are explored in Section 8, where the family and work variables associated with wellbeing measures are considered. The remainder of this section provides a more detailed introduction to the work–family spillover measures because of their capacity to draw a more direct link between aspects of employment and individual and family wellbeing.

7.1 Data and measures

LSAC contains a number of measures of the effect of paid employment on family life (work-to-family spillover) and the effects of family life on paid employment (family-to-work spillover). Employed parents were asked to indicate on a five-point scale ranging from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree' the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with ten statements describing the relationship between work and family. The ten statements in LSAC focused on negative work-to-family and family-to-work spillovers, as well as the positive effects of work on parenting and on self. The statements that the parents were asked to respond to are listed in Table 7.1. These measures are a subset of Marshall and Barnett's (1993) measures.⁶¹

While the individual measures are of interest in their own right, they can be combined to form a number of scales that are measures of the different aspects of the interplay between paid employment and family life. The advantage of the scales is that since they are based on responses to more than one question, they may provide more reliable measures than those based on answers to a single question. The scales used in this section are:

• Positive aspects of work on family life: work–family gains

• Positive effect of work on parenting

• Positive effect of work on self

• Negative aspects of the interplay between paid employment and family life: work–family strains

• Negative work-to-family spillover

• Negative family-to-work spillover

Although there are some differences between cohorts in the measures of work–family spillover, they are generally small. Therefore, the analysis in this section combines both cohorts.⁶²

7.2 Elements of work–family gains

For both mothers and fathers, most (73.2 and 71.8 per cent, respectively) agreed or strongly agreed that working helps them to better appreciate the time that they spend with their children (see Table 7.1). About half the mothers and fathers agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that their working had a positive effect on their children, while just over one-third neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement.

Both mothers and fathers were less likely to agree or strongly agree with the statement that working makes them a better parent. Just over a third of working mothers (36.5 per cent) responded that they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, 41.0 per cent neither agreed nor disagreed with this statement and 22.5 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement. Again, fathers gave very similar responses to this statement (see Table 7.1). As a result, the mean positive effect of work on parenting score for mothers and fathers was almost identical (see Table 7.2).

This similarity of responses between mothers and fathers on these three statements was interesting, given that fathers on average were working longer hours than mothers (see Section 3).

For the effect of work on self, most parents agreed or strongly agreed that having work and family responsibilities made them a more well-rounded person (65.1 per cent of mothers, 72.3 per cent of fathers), gave their life more variety (82.1 per cent of mothers, 74.3 per cent of fathers) and made them feel competent (72.5 per cent of mothers, 70.2 per cent of fathers). The mean score for this scale was the same for mothers and fathers (see Table 7.2).

As a result of the similarity of mothers' and fathers' scores on the effect of work on parenting and on self, the overall work–family gains score was the same for mothers and fathers (see Table 7.2).

7.3 Elements of work–family strains

There were more differences between mothers and fathers on the work–family strains scores, with fathers having a higher score (indicating greater work–family strain, refer to Table 7.3).

The negative effect of work on family life (work-to-family spillover) was perceived to be greater by fathers, who were more likely than mothers to agree or strongly agree that they had missed out on home or family activities that they would have liked to have taken part in (65.8 per cent of fathers compared to 39.8 per cent of mothers). Mothers and fathers were more similar with regard to the degree to which work responsibilities meant their family time was less enjoyable and more pressured (59.5 per cent of mothers and 55.4 per cent of fathers disagreed or strongly disagreed, refer to Table 7.1).

Combining these two measures reveals fathers had a higher level of work-to-family spillover (see Table 7.3).

Mothers were slightly more likely than fathers to agree or strongly agree with the statements relating to the negative effects that family responsibilities can have on work (family-to-work spillover). For example, 25.6 per cent of mothers agreed or strongly agreed that because of family responsibilities they had to turn down work activities that they would have preferred to take on (see Table 7.1). Among employed fathers, 16.8 per cent agreed with this statement. There was little difference between mothers and fathers in the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statement that because of their family responsibilities the time they spend working was less enjoyable and more pressured. Only a minority of mothers and fathers (19.9 and 18.8 per cent respectively) agreed with this statement, although mothers were more likely to disagree or strongly disagree than fathers (58.4 per cent compared to 53.4 per cent, respectively). These two statements together reveal that mothers were more likely to experience family-to-work spillover (see Table 7.3), which contrasts with the greater work-to-family spillover experienced by fathers discussed earlier.

Together, the work-to-family and family-to-work spillover scales produce the work–family strains measure that is analysed in Section 8. Overall, the strains were higher for fathers than mothers (see Table 7.3).

7.4 Working hours and the impact of work on family life and family life on work

This section presents information on how the effects of work on family life and the effects of family responsibilities on work vary according to working hours. The scales described above are used: effect of work on parenting; effect of work on self; effect of work on family life; and effect of family responsibilities on work. The analysis is based on both cohorts combined. Due to the relatively small number of mothers working long hours and fathers working part-time hours, different categorisations of hours for mothers and fathers were used (see Table 7.4).

For mothers, the work–family gains were greatest for those working 16 to 24 hours per week, both in respect of effects of work on parenting and work on self. The work–family gains decreased with a decrease or increase in hours worked in this category, with the lowest gains being for those mothers working 35 hours or more. The work–family strains were greatest for those working 35 hours or more, with the stronger relationship being the effect of work on family life. The work–family strains declined where mothers were working shorter hours. Thus for employed mothers, work–family gains were maximised for those working medium part-time hours (16 to 24 hours per week), while work–family strains were minimised for those working short part-time hours (less than 16 hours per week).

For fathers, work–family gains declined as hours worked increased, and work–family strains increased the more hours fathers worked. These relationships were also evident in the underlying scales, although the effect of family on work did not vary among those working less than very long (55 or more) full-time hours. Thus for working fathers, the maximum work–family gains and minimum work–family strains were found for those working part-time hours (less than 35 hours per week).

7.5 Summary

This section has introduced the concepts of work–family gains and strains. While a more comprehensive set of family wellbeing measures are considered in Section 8, it is important to introduce these work–family spillover measures first as they draw the link more directly between paid employment and family wellbeing. A more comprehensive analysis of the work–family gains and work–family strains scores is undertaken in Section 8, where multivariate analyses are used to relate these scores to family and job characteristics.

• Employed mothers and fathers varied very little on the individual items that comprised the effects of work-on-parenting and work-on-self scores, and also on the composite measure of work–family gains.
• There were more differences between mothers and fathers on the work–family strains scores, with fathers having a higher score (indicating greater work–family strain). Fathers were more likely to indicate they missed out on family activities because of work commitments. They were also more likely to say their family time was less enjoyable because of work responsibilities and that their work time was less enjoyable because of family responsibilities. Mothers, however, were more likely to say they had to turn down work opportunities because of family responsibilities, although this was not sufficient to outweigh the more negative responses of fathers on the other three work–family strains items.
• For employed mothers, work–family gains were maximised for those working medium part-time hours (16 to 24 hours per week), while work–family strains were minimised for those working short part-time hours (less than 16 hours per week). For employed fathers, work–family gains declined as hours worked increased, and work–family strains increased the more hours fathers worked.

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