Cross-National Differences in Relationships of Work Demands with Work-Family Conflict

Abstract

A comparative study of work-family conflict among managers is described contrasting a group of five Anglo countries with three clusters of five countries each that are considered collectivist by nature, that is, Asia, East Europe and Latin America. Results showed that cluster (Anglo vs. each of the others) moderated the relation of working hours with time-based work-family conflict, and the relation of workload with strain-based and time-based work-family conflict. In all cases Anglos showed stronger statistical effects. In all but two cases (Anglo versus Asia with workload and both work-family conflict types) these moderators could not be attributed to family size, domestic help provided by extended family or neighbors, or by paid domestic help. Differences in mean work-family conflict were quite small among clusters, accounting for less than one percent of variance.