Work-to-Family and Family-to-Work Spillover: The Implications of Childcare Policy and Maximum Work-Hour Legislation

This paper addresses the relationship between individual-level work-to-family and family-to-work spillover and two country-level policy measures: childcare policy and maximum work hour legislation. Coupling Gornick and Meyers’ (Families that work: policies for reconciling parenthood and employment, 2003) policy measures with individual-level data (N = 7,895) from the 2002 International Social Survey Programme, the authors analyze whether men and women in countries with stronger childcare policies and maximum work-hour legislation exhibit work-to-family and family-to-work spillover. The authors find that neither childcare policy nor maximum work-hour legislation is significantly associated with work-to-family spillover. Stronger childcare policy is associated with lower family-to-work spillover for women, especially for women with young children. Maximum-hour legislation is associated with greater family-to-work spillover for women, with a significantly larger effect for mothers of young children.