Abstract
The increasing number of working students in urban private universities has intensified the complexity of balancing academic, employment, and family roles. However, the dynamics of work–study–family role conflict in developing country contexts remain underexplored. This exploratory qualitative study aims to analyse how such conflicts are constructed and experienced by 20 undergraduate students at a private university in Jakarta, Indonesia, some of whom also function as members of the sandwich generation.
Using semi-structured interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, the study identifies a dynamic pattern in which financial necessity and career motivation drive engagement in multiple roles, while the overlap of academic demands, work obligations, and family responsibilities generates psychological strain, emotional exhaustion, and time-based conflict. Within this conflict structure, coping strategies such as time management, financial planning, and emotional regulation emerge as adaptive responses that enable students to maintain role functioning and personal well-being. Coping is thus conceptualised as an integral component of the conflict dynamic rather than as a separate outcome.
The novelty of this study lies in extending role conflict theory from a dual-domain configuration to a triadic work–study–family framework and in recontextualising the concept of the sandwich generation within the emerging adulthood phase in the Global South. By positioning the academic role as a structural domain equivalent to work and family, this study offers a conceptual extension of conventional work–family conflict models in relation to non-traditional students in urban private higher education in Indonesia.
https://ror.org/00ypgyy34 
