Perceived Work Factors and Parental Engagement: The Mediating Role of Marital Conflict Shelby C. Borowski Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requires for the degree of Master of Science In Human Development Anisa M. Zvonkovic, Chair Katherine R. Allen Cynthia L. Smith May 3, 2016 Blacksburg, VA Keywords: Work-travel, Work, Marital Conflict, Parental Engagement, Gender
recovery, and job satisfaction), of those who have an additional demand of frequent overnight travel, spill over into the family, specifically in regards to the marital role and parental role. Perceived Work Factors Work Overload Work overload, stemming from role overload and role theory, a concept in symbolic interactionism, refers to an individuals’ perception that there is a lack of time to complete the tasks they must do at work (Reilly, 1982). In today’s fast-paced society, many workers are expected to be available 24/7, working longer hours, and taking work home with them (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010). Work overload is an important demand to examine because it has been suggested to lead to poorer physical health, such as exhaustion, measured using a questionnaire focusing on feeling emotionally drained, fatigued, and burned out, in a sample of IT workers (Ahuja, Chudoba, Kacmar, McKnight, & George, 2007; Moore, 2000) and full-time frontline hotel workers and their managers in Romania (Karatepe, 2013). Work overload is also associated with poorer mental health, measured as depression, in a longitudinal study of dual earner couples across the transition to parenthood (Perry-Jenkins, Goldberg, Pierce, & Sayer, 2007). Family factors such as relationship conflict (Perry-Jenkins et al., 2007) and work-family conflict (Bolino & Turnely, 2005; Skinner & Pocock, 2008) are influenced by work overload as well. Perry-Jenkins et al. (2007) used Braiker and Kelley’s (1979) relationship conflict subscale, assessing how often partners argue and/or have negative interactions and found that both men and women who experienced higher levels of work overload experienced higher levels of relationship conflict. The findings of that study are in line with the negative work to family spillover perspective, in that stress from the work role spill into the marital role, subsequently creating conflict between partners. Similar to the findings by Perry-Jenkins and her colleagues,
Model Coefficients for the Mediation Analysis for Parental Engagement Consequent M (Marital Conflict) Y (Parental Engagement) Antecedent Coeff. SE p Coeff. SE p X1 (Work Overload) a -0.237 0.158 .142 c′ -0.437 0.309 .165 M (Marital Conflict) ― ― ― ― b -0.249 0.304 .418 Constant i1 29.901 5.439 < .001 i2 123.054 13.777 < .001 R2 = 0.055 R2 = 0.056 F(1,39) = 2.247, p = .142 F(2,38) = 1.129, p = .334 X1 (Effort Recovery) a 0.176 0.067 .013 c′ -0.072 0.150 0.635 M (Marital Conflict) ― ― ― ― b -0.088 0.328 0.791 Constant i1 13.640 3.307 < .001 i2 108.010 8.129 < .001 R2 = 0.150 R2 = 0.012 F(1,39) = 6.867, p = .013 F(2,38) = 0.235, p = .792 X1 (Job Satisfaction) a -0.415 0.535 .442 c′ 2.636 0.937 .008 M (Marital Conflict) ― ― ― ― b -0.052 0.279 .853 Constant i1 27.860 7.745 < .001 i2 66.156 15.544 < .001 R2 = 0.015 R2 = 0.177 F(1,39) = 0.603, p = .442 F(2,38) = 4.098, p = .025
domain. From a symbolic interactionist perspective, multiple roles may be perceived as beneficial to women, and they may not feel as much conflict about their work and family roles competing as men do. In addition, recent research suggested men now experience more conflict between work and family compared to women (Aumann et al., 2011). As men are becoming more involved in the home, they may not have the time to complete their work tasks at home; therefore, leading to their feelings of being overloaded with work. Perhaps the workplaces of these men involved in frequent work travel do not have a workplace culture or policies that support job flexibility for men, which also may lead to more feelings of not having enough time to complete their work tasks (Aumann et al., 2011). As for the connection between work overload and marital conflict, work overload did not add to the understanding of marital conflict or parental engagement. In other words, the feeling of being overloaded with work did not spill over from their work role into family roles. This is contrary to past research that supports the spillover perspective that feelings of work overload influenced relationship conflict and work-family conflict (Perry-Jenkins et al., 2007; Ransford et al., 2008; Skinner & Pocock, 2008). The sample used in my study reported on the whole a moderate amount of work overload. These results suggest that the travelers could have been feeling overloaded at their job, but they may have been able to leave the negative emotions at work, and especially so given that they spent quite a bit of time away from home due to traveling. Also, due to the limitations of a questionnaire about their experiences of work overload, I was not able to examine the day-to-day variation in feeling overloaded. It is possible that travelers may feel more overloaded on a trip because they may feel they are expected to work the entire trip (Gustafson, 2012), and since the travelers are not returning to their home
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APPENDIX Socio-Demographic Information The following questions are background questions that will be used for comparison purposes only. Please indicate your age: 18-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51 or older What is your yearly personal income? Under $10,000 $10,001 — $11,000 $11,001 — $20,000 $20,001 — $30,000 $30,001 — $40,000 $40,001 — $50,000 $50,001 — $60,000 $60,001 — $70,000 $70,001 — $80,000 $80,001 — $90,000 $90,001 — $100,000 $100,001 — $110,000 $110,001 — $120,000 Above $120,001 What is your yearly total household income? Under $10,000 $10,001 — $11,000 $11,001 — $20,000 $20,001 — $30,000 $30,001 — $40,000 $40,001 — $50,000 $50,001 — $60,000 $60,001 — $70,000 $70,001 — $80,000 $80,001 — $90,000