Work-home interference in relation to work, organizational, and home characteristics

Abstract

In this thesis we examine work-home interference in relation to work, organizational, and home characteristics. The study is guided by the following three research questions: i) how are workload and negative WHI temporally related? (research question 1); ii) is work-home culture related to the use of work-home arrangements and to work-home interference? (research question 2); and iii) do husbands’ work demands and psychological health cross over to their wives’ home demands and psychological health? (research question 3). The main conclusions of this thesis are that: i) negative WHI can be both an antecedent and a consequence of workload; ii) our newly developed WH culture measure is robust across a wide variety of workers and is characterized by two general dimensions: support and hindrance; iii) more supportive WH cultures are related to higher utilization of flextime, part time work and subsidized child care, to lower levels of negative WHI, and to higher levels of positive WHI and positive HWI; and iv) husbands’ workload and psychological health are related to their wives’ home demands and psychological health. The main (three-level) practical implications of this thesis are: i) organization-level interventions; both governments and employers should offer employees a wide variety of flexible and care-related arrangements, and employers should support the use of these arrangements; ii) couple-level interventions; work-home arrangements, (un)paid help in the household and/or time management courses may decrease crossover effects between partners; and iii) individual-level interventions; focus on specific goals, time management, and leisure activities may reduce high levels of workload and work-home interference.