Abstract:
Work–family conflict (WFC) has emerged as a challenging issue all over the
world. Based on identity, scarcity, basic human values and crossover theories, we
examined how life role salience, value of self-enhancement, gender and spouse’s
emotional stability affect WFC. Data were collected using questionnaires from
167 dual-earner couples in Sri Lanka. All the variables, except for emotional
stability, were measured from the focal employee concerned. Emotional stability
was measured from the spouse. Four moderated multiple regressions were
conducted to test the proposed model. This study found that a higher level
of occupational role salience predicts work-to-family conflict. Further, results
indicated that a higher value of self-enhancement increases work-to-family
conflict, gender determines the level of family-to-work conflict, and spouse’s
emotional stability directly crossovers to reduce family-to-work conflict of the
other spouse. Hence, it is evident that not only individual factors but factors
related to significant others such as spouses also create WFC. This research
contributes to the advancement of the existing understanding on WFC as life
role salience, values and crossover effect of spousal factors are still underresearched
areas in work–family literature.
