DO LONG WORK HOURS ALWAYS LEAD TO WORKFAMILY CONFLICT

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DO LONG WORK HOURS ALWAYS LEAD TO WORK-FAMILY
CONFLICT?

• ROSALIND CHAIT BARNETT, Ph.D.
• KAREN C. GAREIS, Ph.D.
• Brandeis University

Project funded by the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health (OH 03848).
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02/09/02
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Questions

• Do we all experience a Time Bind?
• Is the time squeeze the defining malady of
  the 21st century?
• Are long work hours the problem that must be
  solved?
• Is work-family conflict the inevitable
  consequence of long hours on the job?

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Positive Outcomes

• Role balance
• Low psychological distress

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Negative Outcomes

• Perceived job demands
• Emotional exhaustion
• Marital tension

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No Significant Relationship

• Life satisfaction
• Job-role quality
• Intention to turnover
• Psychological distress

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Mediation
Work Hours
QOL Outcomes
Mediator
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Schedule fit
Ones assessment of how well ones own and ones
partners work arrangements meet the needs of
ones family system.
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Hypothesis
Schedule fit will mediate the relationship
between work hours and work-family conflict.
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Mediation
Work Hours
Work-Family Conflict
Schedule Fit
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Women Health-Care Professionals Study

• Participants
• Random sample of 98 married female MDs
• Dual-earner couples
• At least one child under 14 at home
• Stratified on work schedule Full-time vs.
  reduced hours
• Stratified on race/ethnicity

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Conventional definitions of part-time work are
not helpful.
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Many doctors consider themselves to be working
reduced hours when they are working in excess of
35 hours per week.
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Number of hours per week was treated as a
continuous variable.
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23.4 of the doctors in our sample who were
considered by their employers to be on
reduced-hours schedules worked more than 35 hours
per week.
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Final Sample

• 51 full-time female MDs
• 25 Minority
• 26 White
• 47 reduced-hours female MDs
• 14 Minority
• 33 White

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Demographics

• Full-time MDs worked 48.7 hrs/wk
• Reduced-hours MDs worked 32.1 hrs/wk
• Averaged 40.2 years of age
• Practicing medicine for 10.2 years
• 2 children
• Household income
• Median 200,000
• Standard Deviation 144,438

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Procedures

• Each participant was
• interviewed by a trained interviewer at a time
  and place convenient to the participant.
• interviewed face-to-face for one hour.
• given a brief questionnaire to complete in
  advance of the interview.
• given 25 for her participation.

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Analysis Plan

• We estimated a regression model predicting
  work-family conflict with the predictor, work
  hours, and control variables.
• We then added the potential mediator, schedule
  fit, to the model.
• A reduction in the beta associated with work
  hours would indicate mediation.

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Control Variables

• Presence of a preschooler
• Husbands work hours
• Perceived job demands
• Negative affectivity

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Measures

• Schedule fit asked respondents to rate how well
  their own and their partners number and
  distribution of work hours met
• their own,
• their partners,
• their childrens, and, if applicable,
• their elderly dependents needs.

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Measures
Work-Family Conflict is a single item that asks
respondents to rate the interference of their
jobs with their personal lives during the past 3
months.
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Measures

• Perceived Job Demands asks respondents to
  indicate the extent of their concern with
• juggling conflicting tasks,
• having too much to do,
• and the jobs taking too much out of them.

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Measures
Negative Affectivity asks respondents to rate how
often they experience 10 feelings representing
trait anxiety.
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Note N98. p lt .10 p lt .05
p lt .01 p lt .001
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Note N98. p lt .10 p lt .05
p lt .01 p lt .001
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Conclusions
Two doctors may work the same number of hours,
but experience different levels of work-family
conflict.
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Conclusions
A simple reduction in work hours is not a
panacea.
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Conclusions
Another strategy for reducing perceptions of
work-family conflict is to maximize schedule fit.
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