親のワーク・ファミリー・コンフリクトと子どもの心理的ディストレス

抄録

In this study, we investigate the relationship between employed parents' work-family conflict and their children's psychological health. Specifically, we examine whether and how parental role performance intervene the relationship between parents' work-to-family conflict and mental health of their children. We compare mothers and fathers as to how the three dimensions of work-family conflict (time-based, strain-based, and behavior-based) may affect children's psychological distress via parental role performance.

While a number of prior studies have investigated the determinants of work-family conflict, a relatively smaller number of research has looked into the consequence that employees' work-family conflict brings about. Studies have shown that in general conflict is positively associated with workers' depressive symptoms. However, we still do not know how employees' conflict affects psychological well-being for their “significant others,” such as spouse and children. Although the importance of work-life balance is being recognized in recent times in Japan, and an increasing number of research has started to explore the relationship between employees' work-life balance and organizational performance, few studies have elucidated the relationship between employees' work-life balance and psychological well-being for their family members. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine whether the conflict that working parents experience between paid employment and family life has a negative impact on their children's psychological health. Specifically, we formulate and test the hypothesis that parental conflict deteriorates their performance as parents, which negatively affects children's psychological health.

Using parent-child matched data from a household survey conducted in Tokyo in 2002, we find that employed fathers' work-to-family conflict, in particular, is associated with their lowered performance as a parent, which is associated with a decreased level of children's psychological health. The result suggests that when fathers experience time squeeze and psychological drain from paid employment, they are more likely to face difficulty in maintaining their affectionate parent-child relationships, resulting in lowered psychological health of their children. In contrast, we find little evidence that mothers' work-family conflict deteriorates their parental behavior and decreases children's mental health.

Interestingly, mothers' strain-based conflict directly increased children's psychological distress. For fathers, in contrast, all three dimensions of work-to-family conflict exerted negative influence on their children's mental health via their parental role performance. These results suggest that fathers' job-related behaviors, as well as their stress and time constraints, exhibit negative influence on children's psychological well-being. Furthermore, our findings imply that in addition to the policies designed to increase fathers' family involvement, we must also take into account how aspects of work environment that affect fathers' parental behaviors may be changed.