The Role of Context in Work-Family Challenges and the Implications for Children's Development

Abstract

Achieving a balance between work and family is an issue for family and child wellbeing. Work-family conflict may occur when an individual has to perform multiple roles: their role as a paid employee, and their unpaid role as a parent of children. Performing multiple roles can lead to intrapersonal conflict because it becomes more difficult to perform each role successfully, due to competing demands on time, or lack of energy. The experience of work-family conflict can drain both energy and time, which has implications for parents' health and behaviour, their family lives, and consequently the wellbeing of their children. Changes in society and the labour market are associated with increasing work-family conflict for mothers and fathers, but some families may be disproportionately affected by work-family challenges, and this may exacerbate disadvantage for vulnerable children. This thesis examines how family context affects selected antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict in Australia. Importantly, it analyses the implications of parents' work-family conflict for their children and whether some children are more vulnerable. Using data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children I examine how family structure, gender and financial hardship affect how characteristics of the workplace contribute to work-family conflict and how they affect the relationship between parents' work-family conflict and children's socio-emotional and literacy development.

The results show long hours and poor quality jobs are key sources of difficulty for both mothers and fathers, but are especially problematic for single mothers. This highlights the need to bolster support for working single mothers, for whom the challenges of balancing work and family are particularly pronounced. The study also finds the implications of work-family conflict for children in vulnerable families are complex. High work-family conflict can be problematic for children, but through exploration of socio-demographic differences in the associations, I show there are different dimensions to the effects of work-family conflict on children depending on family environments. Family context and children's developmental stage influence whether high or low work-family conflict are associated with poorer outcomes for children. Given the strong relationship between work hours and parents' work-family conflict, the results point to differences in the implications of under- and over-employment for family and child wellbeing by socio-demographic characteristics.

Taking the results of all analyses together, this thesis contributes to understanding how work hours and work-family conflict affect parents and families, and builds on theories about the impact of work-family conflict in resource-constrained households. The results help to understand the impact on children of the time-money resource mix associated with work in different families. In families experiencing financial hardship this mix is unlikely a choice and it affects the wellbeing of children. I also show that both mothers' and fathers' experiences of work are important for children's socio-emotional and literacy development. It is essential that gender equality in work and care is achieved to help both mothers and fathers manage work and family. This thesis makes an original and significant contribution to the work-family field. It elevates the consideration of household context to a primary concern, and represents a systematic investigation of the effect of family type and financial hardship on work-family conflict in Australia. This project contributes to knowledge on how parents' experiences of work relate to children's wellbeing in different family contexts. It highlights how the dimensions of work carry varying degrees of importance in different families over the course of children's development.