How to Get Happiness Within Work–Family Conflict? An Integrative Model of Subjective Well-Being Among Young Faculty Members in Universities of Mainland China

• Published in: Illness, crisis, and loss crisis, and loss, 2021-04, Vol.29 (2), p.112-130
• Main Authors: Zhang, Qing-Peng, Xu, Huanu, Fu, Yan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age groups; College faculty; Colleges & universities; Compensation; Employee promotions; Family conflict; Family work relationship; Happiness; Life history; Mediation; Parent participation; Quality of life; Resistance; Teachers; University faculty; Well being; Work life balance
• ISSN: 1054-1373; 1552-6968
• DOI: 10.1177/1054137318788650

Subjective well-being (SWB) is an indicator for the resistance of crisis situations and the promotion of employees’ life quality. In the present research, we examined a moderated mediation model of SWB among 197 young teachers (faculty members) who were working in different universities of mainland China. The results suggested that the slow strategy of life history (slow-LHS) mediates the positive relationship between family involvement (FI) and SWB. Slow-LHS also mediated the relationship between SWB and the interaction of FI × Ability to Focus on Work (AFW). Moreover, AFW moderates the simple mediation model of FI → slow-LHS → SWB. Compared with the high level (+1 SD) of AFW, such a model is more likely to be significant on the medium (0 SD) and low level (−1 SD) of AFW. Therefore, the predictive effect of FI on SWB through the mediation role of slow-LHS can be seen as a compensation mechanism for faculty members of university who are pursuing for well-being but cannot purely focus on the core contents of their work affairs. The implications of these results are discussed.