Associations of Low-Income Working Mothers' Daily Interactions With Supervisors and Mother-Child Interactions

This study investigated associations of low-income working mothers' daily interactions with supervisors and their interactions with children. Sixty-one mothers of preschool-aged children were asked to report on their interactions with their supervisors at work and their interactions with children for 2 weeks (N = 520 workdays). Results show significant within-day spillover from the quality of mothers' perceived work interactions with supervisors to their reports of interactions with children. Supervisor criticism was positively correlated with harsh and withdrawn mother - child interactions on the same day. Supervisor recognition for good work was positively associated with warm mother - child interactions on the same day. Lagged analyses showed some significant associations between perceived supervisor interactions on a given day and mother - child interactions the next day. Key Words: early childhood, families and work, family interaction, low-income families. Women's participation in the United States labor force has increased dramatically in the past half century. In response, researchers have examined how women's employment and work conditions may spill over and affect the wellbeing of women and their family members (Crouter & Bumpus, 2001; Hughes & Galinsky, 1994; Rogers, Parcel, & Menaghan, 1991). Although the increases in women's employment were most notable among low-income women (Blank, 2002), research has typically focused on higher income families and less is known about work-family spillover in low-income families. This study seeks to address that gap by examining daily spillover from mothers' perceived interactions with supervisors to their reports of mother- child interactions in an understudied group, very low-wage workers. Theories of the work-family interface suggest that people's work and family roles are interdependent (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). These theories highlight the concept of spillover, when the circumstances, characteristics, or experiences in one role spill over, or affect, the circumstances of the other (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). Spillover can be in the negative or positive direction and can encompass many different constructs, including spillover of mood, skills, values, and behaviors. Consistent with the spillover hypothesis are research studies that find associations between the quality of parents' interactions with supervisors and the quality of their parent - child interactions. Cross-sectional studies of mixed-income samples showed that supervisors' support for family issues was positively associated with firm and flexible discipline strategies, and with warm, responsive, and nurturing parenting behaviors (Estes, 2004, 2005; MacDermid & Williams, 1997). Daily diary studies also produced results that were consistent with spillover effects. On days when mothers reported more negative interactions with supervisors, they were rated as engaging in more withdrawn parent - child interactions that day (Repetti & Wood, 1997). All workers, regardless of income level, have the potential to experience work-family spillover. Both theory and empirical evidence, however, indicate that workers with low ecological resources have more negative workfamily spillover and less positive work-family spillover (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). Lowincome women's low-resource context for managing work and family may mean that similar job conditions affect them differently than higher income workers, thereby resulting in increased negative spillover and decreased positive spillover. Researchers have begun only recently to incorporate low-wage working families into studies of work-family spillover. Although surveys of higher income families typically collected broad measures of supervisor support, in-depth ethnographic studies with low-wage workers provided richer data suggesting that low-wage workers value a more specific set of supervisor behaviors (Enchautegui-deJesus, Yoshikawa, & McLoyd, 2006; Johnson, 2002; Sherman, 2007; Shulman, 2003). …