Crossover Effects of Parent Work-to-Family Experiences on Child Work Centrality: A Moderated Mediation Model

Work-to-family conflict (WFC) and work-to-family enrichment (WFE) are prevalent experiences among working parents. Past research has highlighted the negative consequences of WFC and the positive implications of WFE for the focal person and crossover effects on significant others, such as spouses. However, research on crossover effects on children is sparse, especially in terms of their emerging work beliefs, such as work centrality. To address this research void, based on social support and role-modeling literature, we propose that parental WFC and WFE relate to child work centrality through perceptions of parental career support (an instrumental path) and parental job satisfaction (a sociocognitive path). In addition, we investigated whether these effects are moderated by parental intrinsic work motivation. Results from time-lagged data of 193 parent-child dyads in Switzerland (Study 1) showed that parental WFC (but not WFE) was negatively related to child perceptions of parental job satisfaction, especially when parental intrinsic work motivation was low. Child perceptions of parental job satisfaction were, in turn, positively related to child work centrality, which was positively associated with their job involvement 1 year later when they were in vocational education and training. A second study (Study 2) using a sample of German adolescents with additional control variables corroborated the specific relation between child perceptions of parental job satisfaction and child work centrality. We discuss the implications of our findings for the work-family crossover and work centrality literature.