Understanding “His and Her” Work-Family Conflict and Facilitation

Work-family conflict (negative spillover between work and family) and work-family facilitation (positive spillover between work and family) are two aspects of the work-family interface. Prior work has established that these constructs are statistically and conceptually distinct, but less is known about what work and family characteristics are associated with conflict versus facilitation. Understanding who is most at risk for conflict and most benefiting from facilitation is necessary for establishing effective workplace policies. We used structural equation modeling to determine whether (1) work-family conflict and facilitation have different (statistical) predictors, and (2) whether these predictive relations are moderated by gender. Perceiving more work demands predicted greater work-family conflict, but was unrelated to facilitation. Perceiving more skill discretion at work and being married predicted greater work-family facilitation, but was unrelated to work-family conflict. Perceiving more decision authority and social support at work, and having more children, predicted less conflict and more facilitation. Most predictors were stronger for men than for women. We discuss implications of these results for designing effective policies to increase work-family facilitation and decrease work-family conflict for men and women.