THE EFFECTS OF ORGANISATIONAL AND SPOUSAL SUPPORT ON BURNOUT: A STUDY OF DUTCH EMPLOYEES

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1 THE EFFECTS OF ORGANISATIONAL AND SPOUSAL SUPPORT ON BURNOUT: A STUDY OF DUTCH EMPLOYEES Lieke ten Brummelhuis Sociology/ICS, Utrecht University, The Netherlands l.tenbrummelhuis@uu.nl Dr Jarrod M. Haar Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ haar@waikato.ac.nz Tanja van der Lippe Sociology/ICS, Utrecht University, The Netherlands t.vanderlippe@uu.nl Preferred Stream: Stream 11 Profile: Lieke ten Brummelhuis is currently doing her PhD in sociology on work-family issues. More specifically, she studies the effects of family factors on work outcomes, like burnout, solidarity at work and work performance. In a current organisational study in 24 Dutch organisations she investigates the effects of family demands and support on cooperation between employees and work outcomes on team level. Dr Jarrod Haar from the Waikato Management School is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Strategy and HRM. His research interests focus on work-family practices and issues from employee and employer perspectives, as well as the strategic management practices of New Zealand firms (particularly work-family practices). Currently, he is involved in a number of international work-family projects including collaborations with Australia, and Europe (including the Netherlands). Tanja van der Lippe is Professor of Sociology of Households and Employment Relations at the Department of Sociology and Research School (ICS) of Utrecht University. Her research interests are in the area of work-family linkages in Dutch and other societies. In 2004 she received a grant from Utrecht University for the comprehensive interdisciplinary research program Interdependencies between work and family life. She is coordinating the large-scale international comparative project Quality of life in a changing Europe, financed by the European Commission. She has published extensively on the division of labour between spouses, time use and time pressure in a comparative way, and labour market positions of men and women in Western and Eastern European countries.

2 THE EFFECTS OF ORGANISATIONAL AND SPOUSAL SUPPORT ON BURNOUT: A STUDY OF DUTCH EMPLOYEES Understanding the effects of work and family demands on employee burnout is vital in today s society of constant work and pressure. However, the literature often focuses solely upon the work domain as being the major influence on burnout. Further, while support from the workplace has been explored as ways to reduce burnout, support from the family domain has been neglected. This study of 830 Dutch employees and their spouses from 30 different companies found that work factors are responsible for the bulk of employee burnout. However, family factors were also found to predict burnout. When exploring factors that reduced burnout, work autonomy and colleague support were linked negatively with burnout. Further, family support accounted for 3% of the variance for burnout, with an employee s partner emotional support being the dominant factor. Overall, the present study finds that while work factors are predominately the driving force behind the cause of burnout, solutions for reducing burnout may be found in the family domain more readily than in the workplace. The implications of these findings are addressed. Keywords: work demands, family demands, work support, family support, burnout. INTRODUCTION Changes in the labour force and family composition, such as the rising number of women with young children who participate in paid work and the grown number of dual earner families, have increased the likelihood that both men and women occupy a family and a work role (Allen, Herst, Burck & Sutton, 2000; Cinamon & Rich, 2002). The relation between family and work has been studied extensively (For a review see Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux & Brinley, 2005; Hill 2005), although the focus in work-family studies is mainly on the effect of work characteristics on family life (Ishii-Kuntz, 1994; Kossek & Ozeki, 1999) or on family-work conflict (Dilworth, 2004; Keene & Reynolds, 2005) instead of more objective work outcomes. Organisational studies on the other hand, only recently extended their research field beyond the organisation and involved the family domain when investigating work outcomes. More insight in the influence of the family domain on work outcomes is important for employers and employees, as the combination of work and family demands often results in time pressure, stress and conflict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Misbalance in family and work tasks may have several major drawbacks for both the employee and the employer, such as lower wellbeing, job satisfaction, work performance, increased absenteeism, burnout and high turnover of talented employees (Haar, 2006; Hobfoll & Shirom, 1993). The few studies that addressed the family-to-work relationship on work outcomes investigated the effects of family demands, conceptualised as number of children and/or hours spent on family tasks. Erickson, Nichols and Ritters (2000) reported that the hours spent on family tasks increase absenteeism among employees, and other studies found increased burnout due to the presence of children and family tasks (Voydanoff, 1988; Peeters, Montgomery, Bakker & Schaufeli, 2005). In contrast to these harmful effects of family demands on work outcomes, some studies have addressed 1

3 the benefits of being involved in the family domain for work. Several studies report that the presence of a partner and children lowers feelings of burnout and increases energy at work (Rothbard, 2001; Lautenbach, 2006). These mixed findings urge for more detailed studies on the relation between family and work. Does family life conflict with work life, or can family be beneficial for work outcomes as well? In this paper we will elaborate on family-work studies by considering the family as a source of both demands and resources, thereby not foreclosing a positive effect of family on work outcomes. Moreover, employees increasingly are supported in combining work and family demands by both the family (e.g. help in household tasks) and the organisation (e.g. flexible work times). A next step is to investigate the effects of family and organisational support in meeting family demands on work outcomes. We will focus on burnout as a work outcome among employees with a partner. Burnout is defined as a stress syndrome that is characterised by emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and diminished personal accomplishment (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993). We chose to focus on the individual work outcome feelings of burnout as in today s organisations an increasing number of employees experience feelings of burnout (Lautenbach 2006). This modern labour disease has flow on effects including lower well-being, higher absenteeism, turnover and decreased performance (Hobfoll & Shirom, 1993). Furthermore, combining dual roles and the accompanying stress is most likely to occur among employees with a family (Hammer, Allen & Grisby, 1997; Jacobs & Gerson, 2001) what is the reason we will only include employees with a partner. Consequently, the present study investigates the effects of organisational support and spousal support over and above the demands from work and family, towards employee burnout. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Work antecedents of burnout The commonly used theory to explain burnout is the Job Demands Resource model (JDR-model), which has its origin in organisational psychology and is restricted to the work domain (Bakker, Demerouti, De Boer, & Schaufeli, 2003; Bakker, Demerouti & Verbeke, 2004; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2001; Maslach, 2003). According to this theory all types of jobs include work demands which refer to physical, social and organisational aspects of the job that require physical or mental effort, and job resources which refer to aspects of the job that contribute to achieving work goals and/or reduce work demands and/or stimulate personal growth (Demerouti et al., 2001). The employee invests time and energy to meet work demands, but if these demands surpass the capacity of the employee work outcomes decrease and feelings of burnout increase. Job resources on the other hand, like better tools or autonomy in planning work tasks, may save time and energy or facilitate more efficient performance whereby work outcomes increase and employee stress lowers. 2

4 In studying the effects of organizational resources on burnout we distinguish two types of resources: instrumental and emotional support, following studies on social support (Parasuraman, Purohit & Godshalk, 1996). Instrumental support refers to tangible help from others by performing a task, whereas emotional support refers to information, advice, affirmation and affection (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2002). Organisational studies widely addressed the effects of resources on work outcomes, like the effect of supervisor support and work autonomy (Bakker et al., 2004; Karasek, Triantis & Chaudhry, 1982; Maslach, 2003) and recently involved organisational resources related to combining work and family, like telework and flexitime (Madsen, 2003). Support given by the supervisor and colleagues can give the employee additional information and energy that can be invested in the work domain, whereas family friendly policies would facilitate efficient planning and performing of family tasks, whereby stress and burnout lowers and work outcomes increase (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2002). Consequently, we expect job demands such as high work pressure, to increase burnout, whereas job resources such as job autonomy and co-worker support decrease burnout. H1. More demanding work factors will be linked with higher employee burnout. H2/H3. Higher instrumental/ emotional job support will be linked with lower employee burnout. Family antecedents of burnout One criticism of burnout studies has been the focus on workplace factors whereas including other social domains, like the family, will allow a more comprehensive understanding of burnout (Maslach & Jackson, 1985; Aryee, 1993). In the work-family research domain the linkage between work and family has been studied extensively; however the focus in these studies is mainly on work-family and family-work conflict whereas the effects of demands and resources found in the family on work related burnout hardly have been studied (with the exception of Peeters et al., 2005). Family work studies mainly use the conflict theory to explain the family work linkage (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2002) which central assumption is quite similar to the JDR-model. The conflict theory assumes human time and energy as limited resources. According to conflict theory, the relation between family and work is best reflected by a zero-sum game: time and energy spent on the family cannot be invested in work and vice versa (Friedman, Christensen & De Groot, 1998). Employees who are involved in family life and have more family tasks will have less time and energy for their work tasks. Moreover, due to a lot of family tasks employees risk getting burned out by overburdening their capacity. Consequently, we expect home demands (e.g. family size, more household tasks), in addition to demands from the workplace to influence burnout. Hypothesis 4: More demanding family factors will be linked with higher employee burnout. The idea from the JDR-model that resources provide time and energy for work outcomes can be extended to the family domain as well, which has been done by researchers who addressed the 3

5 enrichment approach of the family-work linkage (Edwards & Rothbard, 2001; Greenhaus & Powell, 2006; Hill, 2005; Voydanoff, 2002). Family life can be rewarding for work outcomes by giving fulfillment, respect and more energy that can be invested in work. Second, family life can contribute to the development of several skills, experiences and knowledge that can be used in the work domain as well. Third, participation in family life may increases one s network, like professional contacts of the partner which might be used to improve the professional career of the employee. The enrichment approach thus adds to conflict theory that having a family (partner and children) is beneficial for work outcomes since it results in more resources. Hypothesis 5: Having a family will be linked with lower employee burnout. Furthermore, family life can be regarded as a resource since family members can provide instrumental and emotional support. Help by the spouse in performing family tasks saves the employee time and energy and reduces stress related to combining multiple roles (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985), whereas emotional support, also known as emotion work in the family research field (Minnotte, Stevens, Minnotte & Kiger, 2007), like affection and respect from the partner may increase the energy of the employee and lowers the stress level of the employee (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 2002). This lead to the last set of hypotheses. Hypothesis 6/7: Higher instrumental/emotional support from the spouse will be linked with lower employee burnout. METHODS Sample and procedure The present study uses data from the Time Competition survey held in 2003 among Dutch employees (Van der Lippe & Glebbeek, 2004). Data were collected using a multi-stage sample of employees from 30 Dutch firms. This survey was designed to study the causes of and solutions to work-home interference and because the data collection was aimed to understand time greediness of workplaces, we over sampled knowledge-based organizations since we expected these dynamics to occur especially in these firms. Overall, the sample is representative of the Dutch economy, with a slight over-representativeness in the service sector and larger sized organizations and underrepresentativeness in agriculture. Overall, 3,970 employees were contacted, and home interviews were conducted with 1,114 employees from 89 job categories, and their partners (response rate 29%). Analyses show that households not willing to co-operate hardly differed on several background characteristics from those who were willing to join the research. Employees were interviewed in oral and written form at home. In addition, they filled in a time diary during one week assigning daily how many hours they spent on e.g. cooking, cleaning, providing care and working. Overall, respondents ranged in age from

6 (average 40 years), with 75% having a partner, with number of children ranging from zero to six, with an average family size of one child. Due to the studies focus on partners, we only analysed respondents who have a partner, work over 12 hours per week, were not partially disabled and filled in at least 75% of the questionnaire. This yielded a total sample size of 830). Measures Burnout In the present study we operationalized feelings of work related burnout as emotional exhaustion as this is considered the central, dominant and most significant dimension of burnout (Burke & Richardsen, 1993). Emotional exhaustion was assessed with the Dutch version (Schaufeli & Van Dierendonk, 1993) of the Maslach Burnout Inventory general survey (MBI_GS; Schaufeli, Leiter, Maslach & Jackson, 1996). The BMI is the most frequently used self-report measure of work related burnout and has often been evaluated as a valid and reliable measurement instrument of burnout (Koeske & Koeske, 1989; Schaufeli & Van Dierendonck, 1993; Malach-Pines, 2005). Emotional exhaustion was measured with three items: ( I feel used up at the end of the working day, I feel mentally exhausted because of my job and I feel tired when I get up on a working day ; Cronbach s = 0.86). The respondents answered how often they had feelings of emotional exhaustion on a 7-point frequency rating scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (daily). The emotional exhaustion scale was normally distributed with a skewness of.317 (Std. error.076) and kurtosis of (Std. error.151). Work demands Several work characteristics were included in the analyses. First, we controlled for the work hours, measured as the absolute number of work hours per week. Second, work pressure was taken into account with a 3-item Likert scale (Cronbach s =0.89) with answer categories ranging from 0 (never) to 5 (daily). The items were I always have a lot of work to do, I must work very fast and I work under time pressure. We also took into account the job position of an employee and distinguished between management and non-management position, assuming that non-management jobs imply heavier work conditions. The respondents were asked whether they supervised other employees or not. Work support Job autonomy was measured on a 3-item Likert scale (Cronbach s =0.69). Examples of the autonomy items were I can plan activities myself and I m involved in decision making concerning my job, measured on a scale with answer categories ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Respondents were asked whether they used flexible work schedules and telework, for at least 1 day per week, resulting in two dummies, 0 (no) 1 (yes). Support by the supervisor were measured 5

7 with a 5-item scales (Cronbach s = 0.86). The respondents had to react on several statements about the sympathy, interest, attention and appreciation of their supervisor with the answer categories ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). For co-worker support we used three items, also with 5 answer categories, measuring the extent to which employees could count on support from colleagues (Cronbach s = 0.80). Family demands The number of children is a continuous variable and varies in this sample from 0 to 6 children. The age of child(ren) was measured by a dummy for the presence of young children in the household (0 to 6 years old). The amount of family tasks was measured as the total time in hours per week spent on household and childcare tasks. Respondents reported during one week in a time diary how many hours they spent on doing groceries, cooking, tidying up, cleaning, accounting, doing repair tasks (household tasks), taking care of children and accompanying children (childcare tasks). The use of these time diaries resulted in a reliable measure of actual time spent to family tasks (Brandon & Temple, 2006). Family support The same questions for hours spent on household tasks, childcare tasks, use of telework and flexible work times were asked to the partner of each employee. The measures for partner s hours spent on house tasks, partner s care tasks, partner s use of flexible work schedules and partner s telework are thus similar to the measures described above. The reliability of the partner was measured by a 4-item scale asking the employee whether the partner often comes home late unexpectedly, cancels an appointment or fails to meet made agreements (Cronbach s = 0.63), with the answer categories ranging from 1 (rarely) to 5 (often). Controls Background characteristics gender, age and education of the employee were included. Gender was measured by a dummy variable, labeled as 0 (man) and 1 (woman). Age was measured as a continuous variable and education was measured on a 12-point scale ranging from 0 (not finished school or lower education) to 11 (higher, scientific education). 6

8 Table 1. Correlations and Descriptive Statistics Variables M SD Burnout 1. Burnout 3,0 1, Work hours 36,8 9,8 0,17** 3. Work pressure 17,9 5,7 0,32** 4. Staff position 0,5 0,5 0,02 5. Work autonomy 8,1 3,1-0,14** 6. Flexible work times 3,9 1,4 0,09* 7. Telework 0,3 0,5 0,09* 8. Supervisor support 11,4 3,7 0,12* 9. Colleague support 8,6 2,3-0,16** 10. Number of children 1,2 1,1-0,07* 11. Age youngest child 7,8 5,0-0,10** 12. Hours on household tasks 18,8 10,0-0, Hours on childcare tasks 9,6 10,9 0, Partner hours on household tasks 19,3 11,8 0,03** 15. Partner hours on childcare tasks 10,6 13,3 0, Partner telework 0,3 0,5 0, Partner flexible work times 3,5 1,5 0, Reliability partner 2,6 1,6 0,20** Source: Time competition data (Van der Lippe & Glebbeek, 2004) Analysis As a preliminary analysis the bidirectional relations between the predictor variables and the outcome variable were calculated (reported in table 1), along with the mean and standard deviations of the used variables. To examine the direct effect on burnout of work demands (Hypotheses 1), work instrumental and emotional support (Hypotheses 2 and 3) family demands (Hypotheses 4 and 5) and spousal instrumental and emotional support (Hypotheses 6 and 7) hierarchical regression analyses were computed with burnout as the dependent variable. We used hierarchical regression analysis because we wished to test each set of factors from each domain separately. Hence, work factors and family factors were entered separately. While this doesn t change the overall model and its effects, it does allow for comparisons between blocks (e.g. work and family). This approach has been used to determine the block effects of work and family on outcomes (e.g. Kinnunen & Mauno, 1998). While some researchers have used this approach using different blocks of predictors such as work factors and family factors separately (e.g. Fu & Shaffer, 2001), we combine all our work and family factors into our burnout model to ensure that the combined effects of these factors are tested. Control variables (gender, education, and age) were entered in Step 1. Work demands (work hours, work pressure, and job position: staff versus management) were entered in Step 2, while organisational instrumental and emotional support (work autonomy, flexible work times, telework, supervisor support, and colleague support) were entered in Step 3. Family demands (number of children, age of youngest child, hours spent on household tasks, hours spent on childcare tasks) were entered in Step 4. 7

9 Partner instrumental support and emotional support (partner s hours spent on household tasks, partner s hours spent on childcare tasks, partner s flexible work times, partner s use telework, and reliability of the partner in meeting arrangements) were entered in Step 5. RESULTS Table 2 (at the end of paper) shows that work demands were found to be the strongest predictor of burnout. The total work hours were significantly associated with burnout (ß=.10, p<.05), as well as work pressure (ß=.29, p<.001) and staff position (ß=.10, p<.01). From Step 2, we can see that work factors accounted for 10% of the variance for burnout, which was a large amount of the overall variance (13% total). Organisational instrumental and emotional support added 3% to the overall variance of burnout. Specifically, work autonomy (ß= -.15, p<.001) and colleague support (ß= -.09, p<.05) were significantly associated with burnout. These findings provide some support for Hypotheses 1, 2 and 3: more work hours, work pressure and occupying a staff function increase feelings of burnout among employees, whereas the job resources work autonomy and co-worker support reduce feelings of burnout. Within the family demands hours spent on household tasks (ß=.07, p<.10) was significantly associated to burnout, supporting hypothesis 4. The negative relation between number of children and burnout (ß=.06, p<.10) provided some support for hypothesis 5 that family life can reduce burnout. From the R 2 Change (Step 3), we see family demands accounted only for an additional 1% (non significant) of variance for burnout. Clearly, the work demands are much greater in predicting burnout than family demands. Family support however added another 3% to the overall variance of burnout. While there was no confirmation for instrumental support from family (Hypothesis 6), there was endorsement for emotional support from family with reliability of the spouse (ß= -.16, p<.001) being significantly associated with burnout. This provides support for Hypothesis 7 that family emotional support lowers feelings of burnout. Overall, the regression model for burnout was significant and substantial (R 2 =.20, F = 9.993, p<.001). DISCUSSION This study sought to expand our understanding of burnout by exploring family factors in addition to the typical work factors. This is in response to calls from the literature to have a wide exploration of family factors in burnout research (Maslach & Jackson, 1985; Aryee, 1993; Maslach, 2003). Further, we were interested in testing instrumental and emotional support from both the workplace and the family (spouse), to further explore the role these domains might have in reducing burnout. We will now discuss the findings in two parts: work and family. 8

10 Work Clearly, in the regression model the work demands dominated our understanding of burnout. Work hours, work pressures and occupying a staff position were found to be consistent predictors of burnout in the model, which supports the literature (Haar, 2006; Major, Klein, & Ehrhart, 2002; Maslach & Jackson 1981; Posig & Kickul, 2004). The findings for instrumental and emotional support from the organisation highlighted some interesting effects. A major finding was the inability of family-friendly practices to reduce burnout. Indeed, from the employee perspective, having flexible work times and telework were both non significant in reducing burnout. Similarly, having a partner with access to flexible scheduling and telework was also not able to reduce burnout. This finding is important, as there have been calls to highlight the effectiveness of family-friendly practices in reducing detrimental outcomes (Tenbrunsel, Brett, Maoz, Stroh, & Reilly, 1995; Lobel, 1991). This is further compromised by the finding that employees flexible work times and telework were significantly correlated with burnout, but these effects are diluted in the regression model. While the present study does not support the ability of family-friendly practices to reduce burnout, it does suggest that methodologically, studies testing the effectiveness of such practices should also include other forms of organisational and/or family instrumental support to provide a clearer understanding of the effectiveness of such programmes. While family-friendly practices did not have any influence, other organisational instrumental support did. The organisational instrumental support finding of work autonomy suggests allowing employee s greater freedom in how they do their jobs may be more worthwhile for reducing burnout than other forms of instrumental support (e.g. family-friendly practices). The finding that employees with a management position experience fewer feelings of burnout than employees with a staff position also emphasizes the importance of control in reducing burnout, assuming that managers have more independence over their task design than staff employees. In addition, organisational emotional support turned out to be an important factor in reducing employee burnout. While colleague and supervisor support were significantly correlated to burnout, only colleague support was found to significantly reduce burnout in the regression model. Hence, emotional support from co-workers who help and respect their fellow employees is more useful for reducing burnout than a supportive supervisor in this sample. Family The effects of family demands on work related burnout were less straight forward. While hours spent on household tasks were positively linked with burnout, the presence of children was negatively linked. This finding specifies which family factors can be beneficial or harmful for the work domain. Clearly, performing household tasks is a demand for employees as it apparently takes more time and energy than it brings in fulfilment or other resources. Having children on the other hand, can be seen 9

11 as a resource since it was associated with fewer feelings of burnout. As burnout can be defined as being used up and exhausted at the end of the day, we suggest having a family reduces burnout because the employee has someone who might physically be able to help (e.g. doing more work around the home), as well as being emotionally helpful and calming, through being available to talk about what is exhausting them, to distract and to put problems at work in perspective. As found for the work support factors, in the family domain emotional support turned out to be more effective in reducing burnout than instrumental support. No effect of instrumental support of the partner was found. The hours spent on childcare and household tasks by the partner as well as family friendly policies of the partner did not reduce employee burnout like we expected. Emotional support to the contrary, was found to play a major role in reducing burnout. Employees, who evaluated their partner as more supportive and reliable in meeting household arrangements, experienced fewer feelings of burnout. Clearly, the found effects of emotional support highlight the importance of good relationships inside and outside the organisation for reducing burnout, and should encourage researchers to explore the role of colleague support and spousal support more in burnout studies. Strength of the present study was our approach of splitting predictors into associated blocks: namely work demands and support, and family demands and support. We did this as a way to test the strength of each block relative to other blocks. Clearly from the amount of variance accounted for by work demands (10%, p<.001), these dominate our understanding of burnout. However, these are findings we would expect anyway from previous studies of burnout. Family demands added only 1% to the variance, and was a non significant block of factors towards understanding burnout. However, at the support blocks, the strength of this approach becomes important. Although organisational demands mainly are responsible for increased feelings of burnout, support in the family domain is equally important to support in the work domain in reducing burnout. We see that both organisational and spousal support add three additional percentage points to the variance, though emotional support of the partner is the strongest buffer for burnout, shown by the high ß-value. As such, we encourage further research into family factors and support when trying to understand how burnout may be managed, since the avenues outside the organisation may be better suited for reducing burnout. As with all cross sectional studies, there are some limitations to be noted. A first limitation is that data was collected at a single point in time, meaning that no firm conclusions regarding causal relations can be made. A longitudinal study may reduce these limitations, although this method involves other methodological pitfalls and difficulties and is not able to prove causation in itself (Zapf, Dormann & Frese, 1996). A further limitation related to the data being collected at a single point in time are common method variance concerns. As such, we conducted Harman s One Factor Test for common method variance as this approach is seen as a useful rudimentary check (e.g. Major, Klein, & Ehrhart, 2002). The resulting factor analysis (unrotated) resulted in ten factors, the largest accounting for 10

12 14.3% of the variance. Given that a single dominant factor did not emerge, this test indicated little evidence of common method variance (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). Furthermore, measuring burnout only with the exhaustion dimension is a limitation. Although exhaustion is the central aspect of burnout a more refined measurement of burnout would be obtained by including the dimensions of depersonalisation and diminished personal accomplishment. Despite this, a major advantage of the present study is a data set with a wide variation in organisations (n=30), employee occupations (n=89), and a large number of respondents (n=830). The finding on time data (personal and partner) highlighted a methodological strength of the present study with the use of time diaries to measure time spent on tasks. This is an advantage as it provides a reliable measure of the actual time spent on these tasks (Brandon & Temple, 2006). Conclusion In conclusion, this paper sought to improve our understanding of burnout by exploring work and family demands and support. While work factors are clearly the strongest predictors of burnout, family factors do add to this model. We found endorsement for the enrichment approach predicting that having a family can be beneficial for work, since having children reduced burnout. In addition we specified the conflict approach in proving that mainly performing household tasks increases feelings of burnout, while childcare tasks did not. Further, while factors in organisational instrumental and emotional support were found to reduce burnout, these paled in the strength of emotional support from the spouse, highlighting the importance of burnout researchers including family related support in their studies. Clearly, further research is required to understand and clarify the importance of support from outside the organisation on work-related burnout. 11

13 Table 2. Regression analysis of work and family factors on burnout BURNOUT PREDICTORS Controls Work Demands Work Support Family Demands Family Support Gender,044,011,007,031 -,010 Education,117**,073*,075*,066,071 Age -,109** -,053 -,049 -,024 -,020 Work hours,099*,123**,148**,126** Work pressure,290***,264***,258***,250*** Staff position,095**,074*,072*,071* Work autonomy -,149*** -,149*** -,140*** Flexible work times,011,014,029 Telework,019,018,011 Supervisor support,010,012,016 Colleague support -,090* -,089* -,095** Number of children -,064 -,078* Age youngest child -,053 -,041 Hours household tasks,067,045 Hours childcare tasks,020 -,025 Partner hours household tasks,060 Partner hours childcare tasks,039 Partner flexible work times,046 Partner teleworking -,051 Reliability partner -,159*** R 2 Change.03***.10***.03***.01.03*** Total R Total Adjusted R Total F Statistic 8.933*** *** *** *** 9.993*** N p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.001. Standardized regression coefficients. 12

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