The increase in dual-career couples means that responsibilities for work, housework, and childcare are no longer confined traditionally to females. Many people found themselves struggling to juggle to the competing demands of work and family. One of the most studied concepts in the work-family literature is work-family conflict. Work-family conflict, also called work-family interference, is a type of interrole conflict that occurs when the demands of work and family roles conflict. Researchers have demonstrated a bi-directional relationship between work and family. That is, work can interfere with family (W→F conflict) and family can interfere with work (F→W conflict). On Sunday morning, faculty of the department of nursing analyzed and learned a paper with the title of “Work-family conflict among female teachers”. The researchers investigated among 187 Israeli women teachers to better understand relationships between teachers’ professional and family lives. Three questionnaires were used to assess teachers’ attributions of importance to work and family roles, their perceptions of two directions of work-family conflict, and perceptions of supervisor and spouse support. This study demonstrated the existence of three profiles of teachers---Family, Dual and Work. It showed that women teachers had a higher level of W→F conflict than F→W conflict. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine questions regarding the relations between stress and support variables from work and family domains. Results indicated that only the model for the W→F conflict was significant and explained 12% of the variance in W→F conflict. These findings have important implications for education research and working-out policy regarding teacher development and management.

Zhang Yinling, Cao Baohua