PR 38,2. Received 13 February 2007 Revised February 2007 Accepted 13 January 2008

Transcription

1 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at PR 38,2 124 Received 13 February 2007 Revised February 2007 Accepted 13 January 2008 Work-family conflict among female employees in Israeli hospitals Aaron Cohen and Efrat Liani Division of Public Administration and Policy, School of Political Science, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present studies on how the demands of work impact the family the work-family conflict (WFC) and how the demands of family life impinge on the workplace the family-work conflict (FWC). The goal of this paper is to examine the antecedents of the WFC and the FWC in a different cultural setting Israeli health care administration. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from a sample of 168 female employees in two public hospitals in Israel. Findings The findings showed a strong relationship between work attitudes, particularly job satisfaction, and the two conflict variables. A higher level of job satisfaction was related to lower levels of WFC and FWC. The relationship of organizational support to the two conflict variables was weak and not in the expected direction. Research limitations/implications The study is based on a sample taken from one occupation, dominated by public employees. Practical implications The findings suggest that an effective way to reduce the WFC and the FWC is to create positive attitudes among employees regarding their job and work setting. Originality/value The paper examines common antecedents of WFC and FWC such as background and role variables, together with two antecedents rarely considered in the literature organizational support for work-related activities and organizational support for non-work activities. Keywords Role conflict, Job satisfaction, Corporate strategy, Israel Paper type Research paper Personnel Review Vol. 38 No. 2, 2009 pp q Emerald Group Publishing Limited DOI / Introduction The question of how to strike a balance between work and life is attracting increasing attention at both the national and international level (Crompton and Lyonette, 2006). Interest in this issue has grown with the increase in dual career couples and single-parent households and the concomitant decrease in traditional single income families. Responsibilities for housework and children are no longer confined to traditional gender roles. The mutual interference of the home and the work domain has been identified as one of the ten major stressors in the workplace. As a result, employees find themselves struggling to juggle the competing demands of work and family (Byron, 2005). Studies indicate that this interaction may be especially relevant for the nursing profession in general and in many European countries in particular (Simon et al., 2004). Flexible employment, working time and the reconciliation of work and family life are central issues of current policy and academic debate. With respect to policy concerns, the European Union, for example, has been a leading promoter of directives

2 on working time, parental leave and part-time workers right. It has also incorporated the promotion of flexible employment and the reconciliation of work and family life into the European employment strategy (Cousins and Tang, 2004; MacInnes, 2006). Such actions demonstrate the importance attributed to this issue by policy makers. Academic debate, too, has focused on the need to reconcile work and family life. As women have increasingly entered the labor market and increased their aspirations for educational attainments, careers, and financial independence, the question of how to reconcile work and family has become far more pressing (Cousins and Tang, 2004). This question becomes even more important in light of the theoretical rationale and empirical findings that family variables affect employees behaviors, particularly work outcomes such as absenteeism, job performance, and turnover (Eby et al., 2005). Given these issues, this study will examine the relationship between antecedents of WFC (work to family conflict) and FWC (family to work conflict) among Israeli women employed in health care organizations. Work-family conflict 125 Conceptual models of the relationship between work and non-work Conceptually, several models have been advanced to explain the relationship between work and life outside work (Guest, 2002). The segmentation model hypothesizes that work and non-work are two distinct domains of life that have no influence on each other. The spillover model hypothesizes that one domain can influence the other in either a positive or a negative way. The compensation model proposes that what may be lacking in one sphere, in terms of demand or satisfaction, can be made up in the other. A fourth model is an instrumental model whereby activities in one sphere facilitate success in the other. Another approach, the border theory, advanced by Clark (2000), argues that people are daily border-crossers as they move between home and work. This approach opens up a rich vein of analysis about the nature of borders, their permeability, and the ease with which they can be managed or traversed. The final model, which will be applied here, is the conflict model. This model proposes that, with high levels of demand in all spheres of life, some difficult choices have to be made. As a result, conflicts may occur, and the individual may experience significant overload. The conflict model is considered the dominant conceptual approach for studying the work family interface (Guest, 2002; Eby et al., 2005). The growing interest in this model is demonstrated by several meta-analysis studies that quantitatively summarized the significant number of studies that have been conducted on this concept (Byron, 2005; Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran, 2005) as well as by a thorough, qualitative literature review (Eby et al., 2005). The conflict theory is based on the notion that sets of opposing demands arise from participation in multiple roles. The conflict is intensified when the work and family roles are salient or central to the person s self-concept and when there are strong, negative sanctions for non-compliance with role demands (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). This study will focus on female employees. According to the gender role theory, women are more likely to see the family role as part of their social identity than men are. Moreover, while women s roles in the workplace have increased, the expectations placed on them in the family role have not diminished (Grandey et al., 2005). The work-family conflict is considered to be bi-directional (Frone et al., 1992). In other words, work can interfere with the family (work-to-family-conflict; WFC) and the family can interfere with work (family-to-work conflict; FWC). The two concepts vary

3 PR 38,2 126 sufficiently to warrant independent examination (Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran, 2005). In addition, a meta-analysis review (Byron, 2005) found that the FWC and the WFC should be distinguished because they have unique antecedents. Thus, the majority of research on this topic examines both directions of conflict. Research findings so far have supported the distinctiveness of the two concepts (Byron, 2005; Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran, 2005). They have also provided partial support for the general expectation that work-related antecedents tend to associate with more work-related interference than non-work interference (Byron, 2005). However, the findings to date have raised some unresolved issues that demand further investigation. First, there is a need for more research that examines the work-family conflict in cultural settings other than the North American one (Wharton and Blair-Loy, 2006). Much work-family research has been conducted in North America, but little attention has been paid to cross-national and cultural similarities and differences. Countries vary in the ways in which they have addressed work-family issues, and the national context may affect workers perceptions and experience of the work-family conflict (Wharton and Blair-Loy, 2006). There may be cross-national differences in assumptions about the norms of family life and about the obligations of employers (Guest, 2002). Crompton and Lyonette (2006) found among several European countries that the presence of a more traditional division of domestic labor (e.g. France, Portugal) contributed to increased work-life conflict. Research findings among European countries showed that the work-life conflict varied measurably by country (Crompton and Lyonette, 2006). Second, recent literature has pointed out the need for research that examines the effect of organizational support on the work-family conflict. Eby et al. (2005) noted that it is particularly surprising that so few studies have examined family-supportive organizational policies, given practitioners interest in developing family-friendly work environments. Grzywacz et al. (2006) recommended future research to examine the effectiveness of organizational interventions designed to help nurses balance the demands of work and family. Another neglected factor is organizational support for work issues. There is some evidence that employees of organizations that have programs designed to assist them in the workplace adjust better and experience fewer conflicts between work and family (Grant-Vallone and Ensher, 2001). However, few studies have examined this concept in depth. Goals of this study The goal of this paper is to follow the above suggestions by examining the antecedents of the WFC and the FWC in a different cultural setting Israeli health care administration. The paper will examine the common antecedents of the WFC such as background and role variables, together with two antecedents rarely considered in the literature organizational support for work-related activities and organizational support for non-work activities. The cultural setting. Given that this study examined Israeli female employees, a population rarely examined in the context of the relationship between work and non-work, a description of this specific cultural setting is warranted. To study the work/family interface among women, we proposed that beliefs and values concerning the appropriate division of labor between men and women at work and at home are key cultural ingredients. Agassi (1982) defined a traditional-egalitarian continuum

4 concerning this division that proved useful for explaining men s and women s work attitudes in three countries, and we used it here to devise a conceptual framework for our study. Traditional ideology holds the work role for women to be secondary to domestic and maternal roles. Obviously, movement toward an egalitarian ideology of women and men sharing work and family roles has occurred to varying degrees in many societies throughout the world. If ideologies concerning the division between men s and women s labor do set cultural contexts for the work/non-work interface, then establishing the relative position of Israeli women on the traditional-egalitarian continuum is necessary for a cultural perspective to be meaningful. For the purpose of this study, it is important to recognize that the activities embedded in these ideologies not only link individuals to social structures but also serve to establish their self-identities. Biebly and Biebly (1989) explained that work identity or family identity forms when role activities become a source of meaning and contribute to a sense of self. Due to the fact that such identities are dependent on activities determined by the division of labor between men and women, work and family identities understandably vary by sex. Women tend to report a stronger family identity and men a stronger work identity (Agassi, 1982; Biebly and Biebly, 1989). Hence, the relative importance of work and family for a woman s sense of self could be expected to differ in traditional and egalitarian societies, with a greater share of self-identity tied to family roles and a smaller share to work roles in the former setting (Cohen and Kirchmeyer, 2005). Lieblich s (1993) comparison of Israeli and American career women supports this line of thinking. She described a less egalitarian ideology in Israel where the self-esteem of Israeli women is tied more to family and less to work achievements than that of American women. Furthermore, in her study of American, Israeli, and German workers, Agassi (1982) found egalitarian ideologies to be most prevalent among Americans, and a woman s self-image as a wage earner with a strong attachment to work to be most prevalent among Americans as well. Women s education, for example, has been called one of the most crucial points for the progress of women s equality with men (Adler, 1994, p. 92). Education is the best single predictor of women s labor-force participation, and is credited with providing women access to traditionally male occupations (Aryee, 1992) and with prompting changes in family roles (Moghadam, 1993). In the past two decades, the number of Israeli women in higher education has doubled while the number of men has remained constant. As a result, more women than men completed college in 1995; more than 20 per cent of women now have a college degree, as compared with 17 per cent of men. The proportion of women in Israel with a higher education degree is among the highest in the world (Lavee and Katz, 2003). Israeli women in the labor force. Work-related indices of the division between men and women also include the labor-force participation of women, the proportion of women in high status occupations, and the percentage of women s salaries relative to those of men. Lower values are associated with more traditional gender roles (Triandis, 1994). Although educational opportunities in Israel are largely equal for men and women (median years of education is 12.1 for men and 12 for women) (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2001), the labor market remains basically segregated along gender lines in terms of occupational distribution as well as social and economic rewards. Women are most frequently employed in education, health, and welfare services, and occupy only Work-family conflict 127

5 PR 38,2 128 one-fifth of all managerial positions. Additionally, many women work part time - much more frequently than men (30 per cent and 9 per cent respectively) and their average income per hour is only 80 per cent that of men (Lavee and Katz, 2003). Certain family features are typical of traditional societies, including high birth rates and strong family stability as reflected in the low incidence of divorce and single-parent units (Katz, 1989). With more egalitarian ideologies, women are granted greater freedom to choose non-traditional family structures. Whereas the Jewish population encompasses a large variety of family patterns and lifestyles, the mainstream Israeli family is most often described as Western, resembling family patterns in other industrialized countries (Lavee and Katz, 2002). According to Haberfeld and Izraeli s (1997) tabulations, 14 per cent of Israeli Jewish households are headed by women. Cross-national comparisons (Katz, 1989) reveal any decline in family stability in Israel to be much lower than in Western countries. Despite a strong work attachment among Jewish men and women, the division of family labor in Jewish society remains fairly traditional, with women performing most housework and child-care duties (Agassi, 1982; Lieblich, 1993). In a study of a representative national sample of 1,000 employed mothers and 500 housewives (Katz, 1989), the average overall burden (i.e. active time invested on the job and at home) was largest for working mothers (13.5 hours per day), followed by husbands and housewives (12.7 and 9.7 hours respectively). Husbands did not significantly share the additional burden arising from their wives employment. The number of hours they devoted to home and children was about the same, whether or not their wives were employed. Husbands, in general, invested most of their time much more than their spouses in their jobs. These figures reflect the traditional division of roles into primary and secondary ones: both partners allocate their active time in accordance with traditional responsibilities. Lavee and Katz (2002) found that for Israeli women, increased segregation based on gender in the division of labor is associated with a decreased sense of fairness, which in turn is linked with a lower level of marital quality. For men, in contrast, perceived fairness was not found to be a mediator variable. Compared with American women, however, employed Israeli Jewish women receive more support from public sources and from relatives other than husbands to meet non-work responsibilities (Agassi, 1982; Lieblich, 1993). Research model and hypotheses Background variables Three background variables will be examined here: education, tenure, and income. A positive relationship is expected between education and the WFC. The rationale is that employees who are more educated will be employed in more complex jobs with more responsibilities, thus increasing the chance that they will experience WFC. Indeed, findings from European countries showed that higher educated people experience more pressures from work and non-work (van der Lippe et al., 2006). Given the high educational level of Israeli women, a similar relationship is expected among them. As for the FWC, education represents a personal resource that can assist employees in dealing with the FWC. Employees who are more educated will probably use more and better coping strategies and skills to deal with the FWC. Therefore, a higher educational level is expected to be negatively related to the FWC.

6 Tenure in the organization and the experience and skills it brings with it can also help employees cope with the WFC. For example, familiarity with organizational procedures and rules will enable employees to find more and better formal and informal strategies for dealing with pressures from family, such as leaving work early to take care of a sick child. On the other hand, those with fewer years in the organization must devote their energies to establishing their position in the organization and therefore may feel the struggle between the demands of work and family more intensely (Cinamon and Rich, 2005). Income has been used as an indicator of work demands and is expected to affect only the WFC. Higher income, particularly within a single organization, suggests a higher-level job requiring more involvement and a greater time commitment (Hughes and Galinsky, 1994). Although salary scales in the Israeli public sector are based on years of experience, employees can increase their positions on the scales through further professional development, often leading to the taking on of more demanding tasks or the assumption of administrative duties. In a broad sample of workers, Staines and O Connor (1980) found those in jobs at the upper level of their range report the greatest WFC. Thus, H1. A higher level of education will be positively related to the WFC and negatively related to the FWC. H2. Tenure in the organization will be related to the WFC. Longer tenure in the organization will reduce the WFC. H3. Income will be related to the WFC. A higher income will increase the WFC. Work-family conflict 129 Role variables In their model of the work-family conflict, Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) proposed that any role that affects a person s time, involvement, strain, or behavior could produce conflict. Logically, the more time one spends in a given role, the more likely he or she will view a second role as interfering with the first (Byron, 2005; Pleck, 1977). Parenting, for example, represents the most demanding non-work role in terms of time and involvement (Gutek et al., 1991; Kirchmeyer, 1993). Being married and having children under 18 can be important determinants of one s WFC (Grzywacz et al., 2006; Kirchmeyer, 2002). Those who are married and/or have more children under 18 will have to devote more time to the family than to their career. Studies show, not surprisingly, that women perform more household duties than men do (Karsten, 1994; Ross, 1987). Studies that examined several European countries found that having children in the household has a strong effect on the work-life conflict (Crompton and Lyonette, 2006; Kinnunen and Mauno, 1998; van der Lippe et al., 2006). Consistent with this view, we expect that being married and having more children at home will result in more time being spent dealing with home responsibilities, a role that will be more strongly related to the FWC than to the WFC. H4. Being married and having more children under 18 will be related to higher levels of FWC. Those who work full time devote significantly more time to their role in the workplace, potentially increasing the degree of WFC. The number of hours on the job increases the WFC and has a negative work-to-family spillover (Frone et al., 1997; Grzywacz et al.,

7 PR 38, ). Longer hours are likely to increase an individual s worries about the effect of his or her absence from home on his or her loved ones. Intensity in the workplace, demonstrated by longer working hours, increases employees WFC. In contrast, less intensive working environments such as part time jobs may alleviate concerns about how one s absence from home affects one s family (Wharton and Blair-Loy, 2006). Empirical findings support the above rationale. Regularity of working hours was found to be an important predictor of WFC among a large sample of European employees (Crompton and Lyonette, 2006; Kinnunen and Mauno, 1998) and nurses (Simon et al., 2004). A study in health care administration showed that nurses working full time experienced higher levels of WFC than those working part time (Cohen and Kirchmeyer, 2005). A meta-analysis review (Byron, 2005) found that the number of hours spent on work was more positively related to the WFC than to the FWC. H5. Working full time will increase the level of WFC. Work attitudes Shamir (1983) argued that the degree of conflict between work and non-work activities that an individual experiences has to do with the individual s work role. The conflict is predicted to be most acute among individuals who dislike their work. There is some ambiguity in the literature regarding the direction of the relationship, that is, whether job satisfaction is an antecedent or an outcome of WFC (Britt and Dawson, 2005). A longitudinal study of this relationship among soldiers stationed in Europe found that higher levels of job satisfaction in time 1 predicted reduced WFC in time 2 (Britt and Dawson, 2005). Therefore, a negative relationship is expected between job satisfaction and the WFC. H6. A high level of job satisfaction will be related to a low level of WFC. Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) and Frone et al. (1992) argued that a high level of psychological involvement in work might lead to increased WFC in two ways. First, high levels of psychological involvement in one role may be associated with an increase in the amount of time and effort devoted to that role, thereby making it more difficult to deal with pressures associated with another role. Second, high levels of psychological involvement in a given role may cause one to remain mentally preoccupied with that role even when physically attempting to fulfill the demands of a second role. A meta-analysis review supported this relationship and found stronger support for such a relationship for women (Ford et al., 2007). H7. A high level of job involvement will be related to a high level of WFC. Frone et al. (1992) proposed that workers should hold their organizations responsible for balancing work and non-work activities. Hence, it seems reasonable that strategies emanating from employers would offer the best solutions for dealing with the WFC. Hall and Richter (1988) suggested that organizations should adopt a response to employees non-work needs that acknowledges and values their lives outside of the workplace. van der Lippe et al. (2006) argued that programs such as provisions for childcare and the right to paid leaves facilitate the combination of work and care. These programs allow parents to fulfill their family responsibilities while meeting the demands of their work (Frone and Yardley, 1996; Schneer and Reitman, 2002).

8 Several studies supported the idea that such a strategy works. A study of female nurses (Cohen and Kirchmeyer, 1995) found a significant correlation between employee perceptions of their superiors support for their activities outside of the workplace and a reduced degree of FWC. In a study of Johnson and Johnson employees, researchers at the Families and Work Institute (1993) found that a perception of support by supervisors and the overall work environment was related to ease in balancing work and family life. In a culturally diverse sample of employees working in Europe, Grant-Vallone and Ensher (2001) found that perceived organizational support for both work and non-work reduced the conflict between work and one s personal life. Two forms of organizational interventions for balancing work and non-work responsibilities will be examined here. The first is organizational support for non-work activities advanced by Kirchmeyer (1995), with the expectation that such perceptions will decrease the FWC. The second one, rarely examined in the literature, is organizational support for work-related responsibilities. We anticipate that such programs will assist employees in making a better adjustment to the work environment. By reducing possible frustrations in the work setting that might spillover to the family, we expect that such programs will decrease the WFC. H8. Favorable perceptions of organizational support for non-work responsibilities will be related to a lower level of FWC. H9. Favorable perceptions of organizational support for work-related responsibilities will be related to a lower level of WFC. Work-family conflict 131 Method Sample and procedure The subjects of this study were 168 female nurses, hospital administrators, and support staff including clerical and maintenance workers employed by two hospitals in Israel. Their mean age was 36.8 years, and their average tenure in the hospitals was 12.6 years. A total of 73.8 per cent were parents. The women represented a sub-sample from a larger survey of these hospitals where self-administered questionnaires had been distributed to men and women at all levels. An acceptable response rate of 60 per cent had been achieved. To maintain homogeneity in the sample and to allow for a better comparison of the data, information from 27 men who had also responded was not included in the analysis. We excluded the men from this study for two reasons. First, despite their widespread entry into the workforce, women still shoulder the majority of tasks associated with child care and domestic responsibilities. Therefore, we would anticipate higher levels of work life conflict among women than among men (Crompton and Lyonette, 2006). This expectation would be particularly strong in the Israeli setting described above. In addition, previous research has demonstrated that men and women may respond differently to employer-initiated support programs (Kossek and Nichol, 1992). Measures Independent variables. The variable of education was measured on a scale from 1 (high school education) to 5 (MA degree or PhD). Tenure in the organization was measured by the actual years. Monthly income was measured on a scale from 1 (up to 2,000 Israeli shekels) to 7 (more than 10,001 Israeli shekels). Marital status was measured as

9 PR 38,2 132 a dichotomous variable (0 ¼ not married; 1 ¼ married). Working full time was measured in the same manner (0 ¼ part time; 1 ¼ full time). The variable of number of children under 18 was measured by the actual number of children. Job involvement (ten items) was measured by the scale developed by Kanungo (1979, 1982), and job satisfaction by the 20 items of the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) advanced by Weiss et al. (1967). Organizational support for responsibilities outside the workplace was measured using Kirchmeyer s (1995) four-item scale of employer respect for workers non-work activities. Kirchmeyer s factor analysis found these practices to represent a separate dimension from more formalized practices such as on-site day care and personal assistance programs. The five-point scale ranged from not typical to very typical. Organizational support for work was measured using nine items from the quality of work life scale devised by Sirgy et al. (2001). The seven-point scale ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Dependent variables. Work-family conflict and family-work conflict were measured by two five-item scales developed by Netemeyer et al. (1996). Higher scores mean more conflict. A high score in work-family conflict indicates that demands related to the household and the family have a negative spillover on performing work duties. A high score in family-work conflict means that demands and responsibilities at work have a negative spillover on household and family responsibilities. Findings Table I presents the basic statistics of the variables and the inter-correlations among them. Results show acceptable reliabilities of the research variables. With the exception of one variable (organizational support for non-work activities) where the reliability was 0.68, all reliabilities were above The correlations among the independent variables were not high, except for the inter-correlations between job satisfaction and organizational support for work (0.55). All other inter-correlations were below Therefore, it can be concluded that the data do not introduce the possibility of multicollinearity. The correlation matrix showed some significant relationship between the dependent variables and the independent ones. The three background variables (education, tenure, and income) were related to the WFC but not to the FWC. This finding partly supports H1 and strongly supports H2 and H3. As for the role variables model, only one variable working full time was related to the WFC, a finding that supports H5. The two work attitudes, job satisfaction and job involvement, were negatively related to the FWC, and job involvement was the only variable negatively related to the WFC. The findings support H6 and do not support H7. Organizational support for non-work activities was not related to the WFC or the FWC, so H8 is unsupported. Organizational support for work was negatively related to the WFC as expected in H9. While correlation analysis does provide some support for the hypotheses, regression analysis is a more appropriate way to test them. The regressions were performed in four steps to examine the contribution of each group of variables beyond the contribution of the previous group. In the first step, the background variables were entered into the equations, followed by the role variables in step two, the work attitudes variable in step three, and the organizational support variables in step four. Table II shows the results of the regression analysis. The findings in Table II do not

10 Variables Mean SD Background characteristics 1. Education Tenure *** 3. Income *** 0.38*** Role variables 4. Marital status * 0.29*** Working full-time *** Number of children under *** Work attitudes 7. Job satisfaction (0.91) 8. Job involvement * 0.49*** (0.84) Organizational support 9. Organizational support for non-work ** *** 0.28*** (0.68) 10. Organizational support for work ** *** 0.38*** 0.44*** (0.83) Conflict variables 11. Work-family conflict ** 20.25*** 0.16* *** *** *** (0.85) 12. Family-work conflict *** 20.22** ** 0.58*** (0.85) Notes. * p # 0.05; ** p # 0.01; *** p # 0.01 n ¼ due to missing values Work-family conflict 133 Table I. Basic statistics and correlation matrix (reliabilities in parentheses)

11 PR 38,2 134 Table II. Regression models (standardized coefficients) of independent variables on family-work conflict and work-family conflict Work-family conflict Family-work conflict Variables Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Background characteristics 1. Education Tenure 20.35* 20.32* 20.28** 20.29** 20.23*** Income 0.28** *** *** 0.25*** Role variables 4. Marital status Working full-time 0.22*** 0.22** 0.21** Number of children under *** 0.21*** Work attitudes 7. Job satisfaction 20.40* 20.37* 20.19*** 20.21*** 8. Job involvement *** 20.22*** Organizational support 9. Organizational support for non-work * 10. Organizational support for work R 2 (adjusted) 0.14(0.12) 0.20(0.16) 0.35(0.31) 0.35(0.31) 0.06(0.03) 0.08(0.04) 0.18(0.14) 0.26(0.21) F 7.58* 5.56* 9.07* 7.31* 2.71*** * 4.70* DR F for DR *** 15.96* * 6.94* Notes: * p # 0.01; ** p # 0.01; *** p # 0.05

12 support H1 that expected education to be negatively related to the two conflict variables. H2, which expected tenure to reduce the WFC, was strongly supported by the data. Tenure was negatively related to the WFC in all four steps. H3, which expected a positive relationship between income and the WFC, was partly supported by the data. The findings showed a positive relationship between the two variables in step 1 of the regression but not in the following steps. H4, which expected that being married and having more children would increase the levels of the FWC, was partly supported by the data. Having more children was related to the FWC in steps 3 and 4 of the regression. Marital status was not related to any of the conflict variables. H5 was strongly supported by the data. Working full time was related to the WFC in all three steps of the regression. H6 was also supported by the data. Job satisfaction was strongly related to the WFC as expected by the hypothesis. It should be noted that job satisfaction was also related to the FWC, a finding not anticipated by this study. H7, which expected higher levels of job involvement to increase the WFC, was not supported by the data. Job involvement was not related to the WFC. Interestingly, the findings showed that job involvement was significantly and negatively related to the FWC, a finding not expected in this study. H8, which expected perceptions of organizational support for non-work activities to decrease the FWC, was not supported by the data. On the contrary, stronger perceptions of organizational support for non-work activities were found to increase the FWC. H9 was not supported by the data. Organizational support for work-related activities was not related to any of the conflict variables in the regression analysis although significant negative relationships with the two conflicts were found in the correlation analysis. It should be noted that the regressions explained 35 per cent of the variance of the WFC and 26 per cent of the variance of the FWC. The largest part of the variance was explained by the work attitudes variables, namely job involvement and job satisfaction. A total of 15 per cent of the variance of the WFC and 10 per cent of the variance of the FWC were explained by the two work attitudes. Work-family conflict 135 Discussion The findings of this study showed that while some of the work-family conflict concept as defined and measured in a North American environment could be generalized to Israeli culture, other aspects are probably specific to the setting examined here. The findings supported the main conclusion of Byron s (2005) meta-analysis that work variables are more important determinants of the two conflicts than non-work variables. In addition, the model tested here explained a significant amount of the variance in the two conflict variables, and by so doing, supported the relevance of the work-family conflict model to Israeli culture. The per cent of variance of the two dependent variables explained by the research modeled also differed. The model explained more of the variance of the WFC (35 per cent) than of the FWC (26 per cent), further supporting the distinctiveness of the two conflict variables in the Israeli setting examined here. Several other findings are also worth noting. The significant relationship of income and tenure contradicts Byron conclusion. Income was related to the WFC in the first step and the FWC in the final step. It seems that for hospital employees higher-paying jobs are not associated with increased work-family conflict. Perhaps for public sector employees income reflects a position with more responsibilities and higher rank,

13 PR 38,2 136 requiring more time spent on the job that increase both conflicts. As for the relationship between tenure and the WFC, it seems that older women who have spent more time in the organization are better able to deal with conflicting demands. Experience may help employees develop better coping strategies. Future research should further examine the effect of tenure on the interface between work-related and non-work related responsibilities. With regard to the role variables, the strong and consistent relationship between working full time and the WFC, and the relationship between number of children and the FWC support the contention that the more time one spends in a given role, the more likely he or she will view a second role as interfering with the first (Byron, 2005; Kinnunen and Mauno, 1998; Pleck, 1977). Cousins and Tang (2004) and van der Lippe et al. (2006) who found such a relationship in European samples, concluded that increased pressure and tension over working and the ability to reconcile work and family life would become more acute in the future. It seems in that regard that the Israeli setting is not much different from the European one. The insignificant relationship of marital status with any of the conflict variables suggests that in Israeli culture being married does not automatically result in more role demands for women, demands that might lead to more interference with work or non-work activities. However, as argued by Lavee and Katz (2002, 2003), the findings here do support the notion that Israeli families and the role of women in them are in a transition stage. On the one hand, marital status has very little influence on the two conflict variables. On the other hand, the significant relationships of working full time with WFC and number of children with FWC support the notion that Israeli women do face obstacles in their career, some of which arise from the division of labor in the household. For example, Israeli women spend 2.5 times more time than men do on housework (Glickman et al., 2003). Moreover, nearly all of the child care tasks are usually performed by Israeli women. As a result, it is not surprising that working full time and taking care of children increase the levels of both conflicts among Israeli working women. This finding contradicts Lavee and Katz s (2003) argument that the basic assumption of Israeli women from all sectors of the population is that family and outside work can be combined. Even if that assumption is correct, the price seems to be higher levels of conflict between work and family. The lack of a significant relationship between job involvement and the WFC contradicted previous findings that the relationship between the two variables is stronger in general (Eby et al., 2005) and for female employees in particular (Byron, 2005). Interestingly enough, the findings here showed that both job involvement and job satisfaction actually reduced the level of FWC. This finding strongly supported Shamir s (1983) argument that the level of felt conflict between work and non-work has to do with the individual s work role. Indeed, our findings demonstrated that the magnitude of this relationship was stronger than the expected one. In addition, both the WFC and the FWC showed a negative relationship with job satisfaction. In the case of the FWC, Frone et al. (1992) contention that psychological involvement in a given role might cause one to be mentally preoccupied with that role even when physically attempting to fulfill the demands of a second role was not borne out here. Like job satisfaction, involvement in one s job does not compete with attention to one s family role. On the contrary, positive attitudes toward the job seem to assist the employees examined here in coping better with conflicting demands. In short, positive

14 feelings about the job may create positive feelings about the family in a way that reduces the felt conflicts between the two. Similar results emerged from a study conducted among a sample of Israeli teachers, another female dominated occupation, where higher levels of organizational commitment reduced family-work conflict (Cohen et al., 2007). It should be noted that the findings here are similar to those found in a sample of women in Finland (Kinnunen and Mauno, 1998) showing that the best predictors of WFC are work domain variables rather than non-work variables. However, the direction of the relationship is different for the two settings. The relationship of the two organizational support variables to the two conflict ones was somewhat disappointing. The two support variables did not relate to the WFC, and organizational support for non-work activities increased the FWC, a direction opposite to the expected one. These findings echoed those from another study conducted among Israeli teachers that found no relationship between organizational support for non-work and the two conflict variables (Cohen et al., 2007). The findings demonstrate, however, that in the Israeli setting positive attitudes toward the job are a more important mechanism for reducing the WFC and the FWC than perceptions of organizational support. In other words, the best way for organizations to demonstrate support for their employees is to provide them with interesting and challenging jobs. The positive relationship between organizational support for non-work activities and the FWC suggests that in some settings, such as this one, the increased role of the organization in non-work activities creates ambiguity and conflicts at home regarding work and family responsibilities. This ambiguity might spillover into work and result in increased levels of FWC. The lack of a significant relationship between organizational support for work-related activities and both conflicts is in accordance with findings that compared eight European countries and showed that role variables had a stronger effect on the balance between work and life than variables that represented organizational support. Guest (2002) reports about a UK survey that also found that the presence of family-friendly practices was not associated with a reported work-life balance. According to Guest, this finding implies that such practices were either ineffectively implemented or, as seems more likely from the evidence, that they may have lessened but not eliminated the problem. Many more studies examining the relationship between organizational support and work-related and non-work related activities are needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn. The study has some practical implications, particularly for HRM practitioners. The findings that it is work environment variables that affect the two conflicts more strongly than non-work variables show organizations that it is not only their responsibility but it is also within their power to assist employees in coping better with pressures from family and work. The findings here, together with the findings from other studies, suggest that an effective way to reduce the WFC and the FWC is to create positive attitudes among employees regarding their job and work setting. This strategy seems to be more effective than investing in support programs for coping better with work or non-work pressures. Finally, several limitations of this study should be mentioned. First, the study is based on a sample taken from one occupation, dominated by public employees. Therefore, we must be cautious in generalizing the findings here to other occupations or to other sectors, such as the private one. Second, the lack of male employees might Work-family conflict 137

15 PR 38,2 138 also affect the findings here. In addition, the fact that all of the measurements came from the same source at one point in time opens up the possibility of common method variance. In addition, causal inferences cannot be made in this cross sectional design. Despite these limitations, the findings of this study do contribute to the understanding of the correlates of the work-family conflict. Some of the differences between the findings here and the findings in other Western cultures deserve further attention in future research. For example, the findings here, together with other findings in the Israeli setting (Cohen et al., 2007; Lavee and Katz, 2002, 2003), show that Israeli women who work outside the house are in what can be defined as a position between tradition and modernity. Their traditional family roles (taking care of children and the division of labor in the household) increase the conflicts with which they are dealing. Their internal need to fulfill themselves (higher levels of job satisfaction and job involvement), strongly encouraged by modern society s norms, assists them in reducing the conflicts and dealing better with the conflicting demands of work and family. Naturally, more research is needed to determine if this interesting conclusion holds. References Adler, L.L. (1994), Women and gender roles, in Adler, L.L. and Gielen, U.P. (Eds), Cross-cultural Topics in Psychology, Praeger, Westport, CT, pp Agassi, J.B. (1982), Comparing the Work Attitudes of Women and Men, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA. Aryee, S. (1992), Antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict among married professional women: evidence from Singapore, Human Relations, Vol. 45, pp Biebly, W.T. and Biebly, D.D. (1989), Family ties: balancing commitments to work and family in dual earner households, American Sociological Review, Vol. 54, pp Britt, T.W. and Dawson, C.R. (2005), Predicting work-family conflict from workload, job attitudes, group attributes, and health: a longitudinal study, Military Psychology, Vol. 17, pp Byron, K. (2005), A meta-analytic review of work-family conflict and its antecedents, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 67, pp Central Bureau of Statistics (2001), Statistical Abstracts of Israel, Central Bureau of Statistics, Jerusalem. Cinamon, R.G. and Rich, Y. (2005), Work-family conflict among female teachers, Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 21, pp Clark, S.C. (2000), Work/family border theory: a new theory of work/life balance, Human Relations, Vol. 53, pp Cohen, A. and Kirchmeyer, C. (1995), A multidimensional approach to the relation between organizational commitment and non-work participation, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 46, pp Cohen, A. and Kirchmeyer, C. (2005), A cross-cultural study of the work/nonwork interface among Israeli nurses, Applied Psychology: An International Review, Vol. 54, pp Cohen, A., Granot, L. and Yishai, Y. (2007), The relationship between personal, role, and organizational variables and promotion to managerial positions in the Israeli educational system, Personnel Review, Vol. 36, pp

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