Influence of Workplace Support for Families and Family Support on Family-to-Work-Conflict and Family Satisfaction in Dual-Earner Parents with Adolescents during the Pandemic

Abstract

Organizational and family support may be invested to reduce workers’ family-to-work conflict and increase their and their family members’ family satisfaction. However, data on the extent to which workplace and family support, family-to-work conflict, and family satisfaction were linked during the COVID-19 pandemic for workers and their families is still limited. This study explored the actor and partner effects between perceived workplace support for families and perceived family support, family-to-work conflict, and family satisfaction, in different-sex dual-earner parents with adolescents and the mediating role of parents’ family-to-work conflict. In the Metropolitan Region of Chile, 430 dual-earner parents and their adolescent child (mean age of 12.8 years, 53.7% female) were recruited for the study. Mothers and fathers responded to measures of family-to-work conflict and perceived workplace support for families and the Perceived Family Support Scale. The three family members answered the Satisfaction with Family Life Scale. Analyses were conducted using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model and structural equation modeling. Results showed that mothers’ and fathers’ perceived workplace support for families and perceived family support helped reduce their family-to-work conflict; no other association involving parents’ perceived workplace support for families was significant. By contrast, direct actor and partner effects were found between parents’ perceived family support and the three family members’ family satisfaction. Family-to-work conflict showed two significant mediating roles: One intraindividual in fathers and one intraindividual from fathers to adolescents. These findings indicate that resources both parents gain from perceived family support positively affect the three family members’ family satisfaction by different mechanisms and underscore the importance of family support for family satisfaction during the pandemic.