Long Work Hours and Family Life: A Cross-National Study of Employees' Concerns

Work-family conflict is a pressing research and policy issue. The authors extend previous scholarship on this issue by studying elite employees’worries about the effects of longwork hours on those in their personal life. This issue is researched cross-nationally in a sample of managers and professio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of family issues 2006-03, Vol.27 (3), p.415-436
Main Authors: Wharton, Amy S., Blair-Loy, Mary
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrators
Attitude Measures
China
Comparative studies
Conflict
Context Effect
Cross Cultural Studies
Crosscultural Differences
Cultural Differences
Emotional Response
Employee Attitudes
Employees
Families & family life
Family Work Relationship
Financial Services
Foreign Countries
Gender Differences
Hong Kong
London
London, England
Perceptions
Predictor Variables
Professional Personnel
United States
United States of America
Urban Population
USA
Work Attitudes
Work life balance
Work-Family conflict
Working Hours
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Description
Summary:Work-family conflict is a pressing research and policy issue. The authors extend previous scholarship on this issue by studying elite employees’worries about the effects of longwork hours on those in their personal life. This issue is researched cross-nationally in a sample of managers and professionals based in the United States, London, and Hong Kong, all of whom work for one division of a high-commitment, global, financial services firm. Hong Kong respondents are more likely than those in the United States and in England to worry about work-family conflict when controlling for job and family characteristics. The authors argue that the meaning of family varies by national context, in part because of the emphasis in Hong Kong on the extended family as a robust institution with intense ties and obligations. In all three countries, women experience higher levels of work-family conflict than men do.
ISSN:0192-513X
1552-5481
DOI:10.1177/0192513X05282985