Work and Family Conflict: Indicators, Changes, and Welfare Policy Regimes

Shih-Yi Chao , Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Existing literature has inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between work-family conflict and social welfare regimes. It also rarely includes countries beyond Western welfare regimes and explores changes in work-family conflict over time. To address the puzzle and gaps, this study uses 2002, 2005, 2012, and 2015 the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) to investigate the differences and changes in three indicators of work-family conflict, including time squeeze, energy depletion, and blurred boundary, and their performance in western social welfare regimes, as well as in welfare transitioning areas including southern European, central/east European, Latin American, and Asian countries. The results from multilevel logistic regression reveal that the patterns of time squeeze and energy depletion differ from that of blurred boundary. Western social welfare regimes tend to have a lower level of time squeeze and energy depletion, but exhibit a higher level of blurred boundary, compared to welfare transitioning countries. Additionally, the social democratic welfare regime experiences a greater decline in work-family conflict over a decade, as does Latin America, which initially has the highest baseline of work-family conflict. This study demonstrates the dimensions of work and family conflicts, their patterns and changes across different social welfare regimes, offering implications for family policies.

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 Presented in Session 118. Work and Family