Clarifying relationships among work and family social support, stressors, and work-family conflict

Although work and family social support predict role stressors and work–family conflict, there has been much ambiguity regarding the conceptual relationships among these constructs. Using path analysis on meta-analytically derived validity coefficients (528 effect sizes from 156 samples), we compare three models to address these concerns and clarify relationships. Results revealed that social support, controlling for role involvement, is best viewed as an antecedent of role stressors and subsequent work–family conflict. Controlling for work and family involvement, work and family social support were most related to same domain role conflict (b = .46, p < .05; b = .43, p < .05) and role ambiguity (b = .28, p < .05; b = .33, p < .05). Subsequently, work role conflict and time demands were most related to work-to-family conflict (b = .39, p < .05; b = .21, p < .05), while family role conflict and role ambiguity were most related to family-to-work conflict (b = .22, p < .05; b = .24, p < .05). Implications for research and practice, along with suggestions for theoretical advances, are discussed.

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