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

• 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
• ISSN: 0192-513X; 1552-5481
• DOI: 10.1177/0192513X05282985

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.