The influence of work pressure and industry on work-family conflict : a meta-analytic review of South African research

Research purpose&#13;\nThe purpose of this study is to examine the effects of work pressure on work-family&#13;\nconflict as reported by South African academic research. Furthermore, the study&#13;\nexamines the influence of employees working in gendered industries on the&#13;\nassociation between work pressure and work-family conflict.&#13;\nMotivation for study&#13;\nThere is currently no meta-analytic study employing just South African samples to&#13;\ninvestigate work-family conflict As researchers are often confronted with conflicting&#13;\nfindings from different studies, this study aims to make sense of work-family conflict&#13;\nin South Africa by reporting on its current status using all available published&#13;\nliterature.&#13;\nResearch design, approach and methods&#13;\nThis study followed a meta-analytic approach in order to investigate the current state&#13;\nof work-family conflict in South Africa according to the published quantitative&#13;\nacademic literature. As such, correlations between sources of work pressure and&#13;\nwork-family conflict reported in articles were used in order to calculate overall&#13;\nestimations of the association between work pressure, industry, and work-family&#13;\nconflict. Main findings&#13;\nResults indicate that various sources of work pressure, as well as overall work&#13;\npressure, are positively associated with work-family conflict. Regarding industry,&#13;\nresults indicate that the industry, that is, whether industries are numerically male- or&#13;\nfemale-dominated, moderates the association between work pressure and workfamily&#13;\nconflict in such a way that employees in male-dominated industries&#13;\nexperience increased work-family conflict compared to employees in femaledominated&#13;\nindustries.&#13;\nLimitations&#13;\nResults should be interpreted bearing in mind that the types of industries in which&#13;\nsamples were collected were very limited, and as such, results might not be&#13;\napplicable to all male- or female-dominated industries in South Africa. Also&#13;\nimpinging on the true nature of the work-family conflict relationship with work&#13;\npressure and industry, is the limited number of articles included in the study because&#13;\nthere are a limited number of published studies which have been conducted in South&#13;\nAfrica. Lastly, the manner in which samples were categorised as male- or femaledominated&#13;\ndoes not guarantee a masculine or feminine culture within those&#13;\norganisations respectively. Future research&#13;\nIt is suggested that similar studies regarding work-family conflict and industry&#13;\nconducted in the future categorise industries as male- or female-dominated&#13;\naccording to the nature of the cultures in those organisations--either masculine or&#13;\nfeminine. Classifying organisations as male- or female-dominated in this manner&#13;\nshould provide more representative results of the true nature of the association&#13;\nbetween work-family conflict and industry. Researchers should also try to obtain a&#13;\nmore representative sample of male- and female-dominated industries in order to&#13;\nmake the results applicable to a wider range of sectors.&#13;\nConclusion&#13;\nInsight was given into the current nature of work-family conflict in South Africa as&#13;\nreported by the available published academic literature. The association between&#13;\nwork pressure, industry, and work-family conflict is reported.

Topic: Work-Family Balance Challenges
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences