JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR 50, 185203 (1997)

ARTICLE NO. VB961557

WorkFamily Conflict in Dual-Earner Couples: Within-

Individual and Crossover Effects of Work and Family

LESLIE B. HAMMER

Portland State University

ELIZABETH ALLEN

Oregon Health Sciences University

AND

TENORA D. GRIGSBY

Portland State University

Three hundred ninety-nine dual-earner couples participated in a field study examin-

ing the effects of work and family variables on workfamily conflict. The effects
of own (i.e., within-individual) and partners (crossover effects) work and family
involvement, career salience, perceived flexibility of work schedule, and partners
workfamily conflict on individuals workfamily conflict were examined. Results
indicated significant relationships between the study variables and individuals work
family conflict, consistent with previous research. Furthermore, and of most interest
to the present study, partners workfamily conflict accounted for a significant amount
of variance in both males and females workfamily conflict. Post hoc exploratory
analyses further revealed that crossover effects accounted for a significant amount of
variance in workfamily conflict over and above the within-individual effects, sug-
gesting that future research on workfamily conflict use the couple as the unit of
analysis. q 1997 Academic Press

The nature of the work force is changing in terms of gender, race, and age
(Offermann & Gowing, 1990; Zedeck & Mosier, 1990). Seventy percent of
women between the ages of 25 and 44 with children under the age of 18,

The authors thank Margaret Neal, Donald Truxillo, and the anonymous reviewers for comments
on earlier versions of this paper. We also thank Wesley Brenner and Robert Fountain for
assistance with data analyses. This study was partially funded by a faculty development grant
from Portland State University. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Leslie Hammer,
Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207-0751.

185
0001-8791/97 $25.00
Copyright q 1997 by Academic Press
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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186 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

and 75% of all women between the ages of 25 and 54 were in the labor force
in 1994 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1995). Likewise, in 1993, 53% of
working women were in full-time jobs, year-round (U. S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 1995). As womens participation in the work force continues to
increase, so does the number of dual-earner couples.
Zedeck (1992) argued for more research on the effects of work and family
involvement in dual-earner couples. One outcome of involvement in work
and family roles associated with being in a dual-earner couple is workfamily
conflict (WFC): a form of interrole conflict arising from participation in both
work and family roles (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Developing a better
understanding of WFC is important to organizations as well as to employees
because conflict, as a source of stress, is associated with negative conse-
quences both on and off the job (e.g., Bedian, Burke, & Moffett, 1988;
Parasuraman, Greenhaus, & Granrose, 1992; Rice, Frone, & McFarlin, 1992;
Sekaran, 1983; Thomas & Ganster, 1995; Williams & Alliger, 1994).
Although the relationship between work and nonwork activities has been
recognized for over 100 years (Wilensky, 1960), Lambert (1990) suggests
that current theories of work and family linkages (i.e., spillover, segmentation,
and compensation) are inadequately conceptualized, primarily focusing on
the individual as the unit of analysis (e.g., within-individual relationships),
as opposed to the couple (e.g., crossover effects of work and family to a
spouse/partner). Studying the couple as the unit of analysis allows the exami-
nation of crossover effects of the stress of one spouse affecting the stress of
the other spouse (Greenhaus, Parasuraman, Granrose, Rabinowitz, & Beutell,
1989; Parasuraman et al., 1992; Westman & Etzion, 1995). The transmission
of stress to spouses (i.e., crossover effects) has received relatively little re-
search attention (Jones & Fletcher, 1993). Thus, the main purpose of the
present study was to examine the crossover effects of work and family vari-
ables on WFC in dual-earner couples.
WFC and Within-Individual Effects
WFC can arise from pressures originating in either the individuals work
or family domains (e.g., Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992; Greenhaus & Beu-
tell, 1985; Loerch, Russell, & Rush, 1989; see Watkins & Subich, 1995, for
a review). For example, Greenhaus et al. (1989) found that work domain
pressures, such as role stressors, work salience, task characteristics, and work
schedule, had significant effects on individuals time-based and strain-based
WFC. Similarly, family stressors, such as stress from being a parent or a
spouse, have contributed to family-to-work conflict spillover (Frone et al.,
1992). The presence of children in the household (Goff, Mount, & Jamison,
1990; Holahan & Gilbert, 1979) and the number of hours spent in work and
family roles (Gutek, Searle, & Klepa, 1991) have also been positively related
to WFC. Three antecedents of WFC of interest to the present study were
work salience, perceived flexibility of work schedule, and family involvement.

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 187

Work salience. Work salience has been defined as a function of both work
involvement and career priority (Greenhaus et al., 1989). Although work
involvement is a measure of an individuals psychological responses to his
or her work (Lodahl and Kejner, 1965), high levels of work involvement are
expected to be positively related to the actual behavioral investment in work
activities (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Tests of numerous WFC models have
demonstrated a positive relationship between work involvement and WFC
(e.g., Duxbury & Higgins, 1991; Frone & Rice, 1987; Frone et al., 1992).
The second aspect of work salience is the relative priority individuals place
on their career compared to their partners career (Greenhaus et al., 1989).
Greenhaus et al. (1989) found that career priority was positively related to
WFC for women, but not related to WFC for men.
Perceived work schedule flexibility. Perceived work schedule flexibility refers
to an individuals subjective assessment that his or her work schedule provides
the flexibility needed to handle family responsibilities, regardless of the type of
schedule (Grigsby & Hammer, 1994). It has been suggested that perceptions of
flexibility may mediate the relationship between the type of work schedule and
WFC (Christensen & Staines, 1990; Pierce, Newstrom, Dunham, & Barber, 1989).
Similarly, perceived work schedule inflexibility was a significant predictor of
strain-based WFC for males in the Greenhaus et al. (1989) study.
Family involvement. Yogev and Brett (1985) defined family involvement
as the degree to which individuals identify with their family, the relative
importance of the family to individuals self-image and self-concept, and
individuals commitment to their family. Greenhaus and Kopelman (1981)
found a positive relationship between family involvement and family conflict,
while Duxbury and Higgins (1991) found a positive relationship between
family involvement and WFC, a relationship that was stronger for males than
for females.
Work and Family among Dual-Earner/Dual-Career Couples
A distinction has been made between dual-earner and dual-career couples
by a number of researchers (e.g., Dancer & Gilbert; 1993; Gilbert & Rachlin,
1987; Karambayya & Reilly, 1992; Sekaran, 1986), where in the former one
or both members of the couple hold jobs, while in the latter, both members
hold careers. Gupta and Jenkins (1985), however, note that there are difficul-
ties in operationally defining career versus job. For example, the job
of a teacher may be a career to one person and a job to another, depending
on the degree of commitment to, and developmental progression in, the work
role (Gupta & Jenkins, 1985). The dual-career couple has been defined as a
unit where adult members of the household pursue careers (i.e., jobs that
require a high degree of commitment) and at the same time maintain a family
life that may include children (Rapoport & Rapoport, 1971). Sekaran (1986)
suggests that dual-earner couples may transition into dual-career couples over
a period of time. In sum, dual-earner is the more generic term for couples in

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188 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

which both members are employed (one or both members may hold jobs, as
opposed to, careers) and maintain a family life, while dual-career implies a
degree of psychological commitment to, and perhaps developmental progres-
sion in, the work role.
Many complexities exist for these couples, ranging from multiple role
overload to role-cycling over the stages of life (Sekaran, 1986). Involvement
in work and family roles differs across dual-earner/dual-career couples de-
pending on the degree of traditional gender role expectations, which further
affects how each member of the couple responds to various work and family
demands (Pleck, 1985). As Mederer (1993) found, women in dual-earner
couples who performed a significant amount of the housework compared to
their husbands had lower perceptions of fairness of labor allocation and higher
conflict than women who shared in the allocation of housework with their
husbands. Furthermore, Karambayya and Reilly (1992) found that women
in dual-earner couples restructured their work activities around their family
responsibilities more than their husbands did, consistent with traditional gen-
der role expectations.
In an attempt to provide a better understanding of work and family issues,
Yogev and Brett (1985) proposed a typology of single and dual-career couples
based on the assumption that the work and family involvement of one spouse
was related to the work and family involvement of the other spouse. They
argued that most research on work and family has occurred at the individual
level of analysis, which assumes that the work and family role behavior of
a married individual is unaffected by the work and family role behavior of his
or her spouse (p. 755, 1985). Likewise, Gupta and Jenkins (1985) proposed a
framework that emphasizes the interactions of work and family roles within
and between the partners of a dual-career couple (p. 144) and how these
interactions lead to stress. According to this framework, three sources of stress
(work, family, interrole) originate from each partners own roles, referred to
as intraindividual role stressors. These are analogous to within-individual
factors in the present study. These three sources of stress are also proposed
to originate from the interaction between individuals roles and their partners
roles, referred to as interindividual stressors (i.e., interindividual work role
stressors, interindividual family role stressors, and interindividual interrole
stressors). The interindividual stressors are analogous to crossover effects in
the present study. Examining the crossover effects of stressors using the
couple as the unit of analysis may increase our understanding of the complexi-
ties of multiple roles in dual-earner couples.
Crossover Effects in Dual-Earner Couples
The crossover, or transmission of stress and strain to a spouse, was studied
by Westman and Etzion (1995) in a sample of 101 male military officers and
their wives. Results of the study indicated that burnout had significant cross-
over effects from one spouse to the other. It was suggested that one spouses

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 189

burnout may create an additional source of stress, thus leading to the other
spouses burnout. The authors conclude that studies of organizational stress
should take a family systems perspective by considering how spouses affect
individuals stress at work.
The only studies of crossover effects in the WFC literature have been
conducted by Greenhaus, Parasuraman, and colleagues (i.e., Greenhaus et al.,
1989; Parasuraman et al., 1992). Greenhaus et al. (1989) suggested that high
work salience of one partner would be related to greater family pressures for
the other partner, resulting in greater WFC among partners in dual-career
couples. Using a matched set of 119 couples, moderated regression analyses
indicated that the effects of interactions between each partners work salience
(i.e., operationalized as job involvement and career priority) on WFC were
not significant for women. However, there was a significant interaction of
both partners job involvement on mens level of time-based WFC and an
interaction of both partners career priority on mens level of strain-based
conflict. More specifically, mens time-based conflict was lowest when both
partners had high job involvement and mens strain-based conflict was highest
when both partners placed higher priority on their own career than on their
partners career.
Using the data from the 119 dual-career couples in the Greenhaus et al.
(1989) study, Parasuraman et al. (1992) examined the effects of role stressors
and WFC on spouses/partners family satisfaction. The results indicated that
although males work and family stressors and WFC did not affect their
spouses family satisfaction, females family role stressors did have a signifi-
cant negative relationship with their spouses family satisfaction, thus demon-
strating crossover effects in predictors of family satisfaction.
Karambayya and Reilly (1992) found positive correlations between males
stress and females work involvement in a sample of 39 couples. They also
found that those couples with corresponding high levels of family involvement
and low levels of work involvement had low levels of stress. Regression
analyses failed to find significant crossover effects, which could have been
due to the small sample size (Karambayya & Reilly, 1992). In a sample of
110 working couples, Jones and Fletcher (1993) found significant crossover
effects of mens job demands on womens psychological health but found no
effects of womens job demands on mens psychological health. This finding
is contrary to earlier research that demonstrated a negative relationship be-
tween a wifes employment status and a husbands stress on the job (Burke,
1988; Greenhaus & Kopelman, 1981; Staines, Pottick, & Fudge, 1986).
In her review of life-span career development and the reciprocal interaction
of work and nonwork, Swanson (1992) called for more research that samples
intact paired or matched couples to better understand the phenomena that
occur within dual-earner/dual-career couples. The present study addresses this
need by studying the crossover effects of work and family involvement and
WFC on partners WFC using the marital dyad as the unit of analysis.

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190 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

Hypotheses
Consistent with previous research on WFC and within-individual effects
(e.g., Duxbury & Higgins, 1991; Frone & Rice, 1987; Frone et al., 1992;
Greenhaus et al., 1989) it is expected that there will be a significant positive
relationship between work salience and WFC (H1). It is also expected that
there will be a significant negative relationship between perceived work sched-
ule flexibility and WFC (H2). In addition, it is expected that there will be a
significant positive relationship between family involvement and WFC (H3).
Based on the research and theory of crossover effects (e.g., Greenhaus et
al., 1989; Gupta & Jenkins, 1985; Jones & Fletcher, 1993; Parasuraman et
al., 1992; Westman & Etzion, 1995), the following four hypotheses are of
central interest to the present study. It is expected that there will be a signifi-
cant positive relationship between ones work salience and ones partners
level of WFC (H4). It is also expected that there will be a significant negative
relationship between an individuals level of perceived flexibility and his or
her partners level of WFC (H5). Because fewer demands may be placed on
individuals with partners who are primarily responsible for their family needs,
those individuals may have more time to spend in their work role. Thus, there
will be a significant negative relationship between ones family involvement
and ones partners level of WFC, such that individuals who are highly in-
volved in their family will have partners who experience lower levels of
WFC than individuals with low levels of family involvement (H6). The last
hypothesis states that there will be a significant positive relationship between
an individuals level of WFC and his or her partners level of WFC (H7).

METHOD
Participants
The present study was conducted as part of a larger research project on
work and family issues. A random sample of 2000 bank employees in the
Pacific Northwest and their spouses/partners was surveyed. Responses were
received from 999 (50%) bank employees and 486 spouses/partners. Selection
criteria for the present study included couples who (a) had both partners
working greater than or equal to 20 hours a week, (b) shared a common
residence, and (c) were heterosexual. These selection criteria are similar to
other studies on WFC and dual-career/dual-earner couples (e.g., Greenhaus
et al., 1989). Based on these selection criteria the present study consisted of
399 dual-earner couples (N 798), consistent with Gilbert and Rachlins
(1987) definition of dual-earner couple.
Of the 399 couples in the study who shared a common residence, 393
reported they were married. Couples reported living together an average of
14 years. The average age of the female participants was 39, while the average
age of the male participants was 42. Ninety-two percent (n 736) of the
respondents indicated their ethnicity was Caucasian. Two percent (n 16)

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 191

of the respondents were Asian, 2% (n 15) were Hispanic, 1% (n 7) was

African American, .5% (n 5) was Native American, and 2.5% (n 20)
were Other. Fifty-five percent (n 220) of the couples had children living
at home. Of those, over half had more than one child living at home. The
average age of the youngest (or only) child living at home was 9, and the
average age of the oldest child living at home was 12.
Job classifications of the bank employees were as follows: 13% were at
the Vice President level or above, 51% held exempt positions below the Vice
President level (e.g., managerial, professional, technical, administrative), and
36% held nonexempt positions (e.g., clerical, customer service representative).
The job classifications of the partners were as follows: 34% professional,
17% blue-collar, 17% managerial, 11% technical, 6% administrative, 5%
clerical, and 10% other. Based on these classifications, approximately 42%
of the women classified their jobs as nonprofessional (i.e., clerical, blue-
collar, or other), while 28% of the men classified their jobs as nonprofessional,
further supporting the idea that the present sample consisted primarily of dual-
earner couples, rather than dual-career couples (Gilbert & Rachlin, 1987).
Furthermore, the average number of hours worked per week by male respon-
dents was 46, compared to 41 for females. The respondents worked an average
of 9 years in their present job.
Survey Instrument
A composite survey questionnaire was administered to assess sociodemo-
graphic information, WFC, work salience, perceived work schedule flexibility,
and family involvement for each participant. Identical data for employees and
partners were collected for all research variables used in the study except job
classification, which was bank-specific.
Sociodemographic data. Data on age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, number
of children, age of youngest and oldest child, job classification, and hours
worked per week were collected.
WFC. The measure of WFC was adapted from Kopelman, Greenhaus, and
Connolly (1983) by Goff et al. (1990), and consisted of 16 items coded such
that 1 strongly disagree and 5 strongly agree (a .88). Eight interrole
conflict items from Kopelman et al. measured spillover from work to family,
and eight items were included by Goff et al. to reflect the inverse: the spillover
from family to work. High scores indicate higher levels of perceived WFC.
Internal consistency reliability for this measure in the present study was .89.
Work salience. Work salience was defined as a function of both work
involvement and career priority, consistent with Greenhaus et al. (1989). The
four-item work involvement measure used a 5-point Likert scale response
format (coded such that 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree). Three
of the items were from the work involvement measure developed by Quinn
and Staines (1979) (e.g., My main satisfaction in life comes from my
work), with an internal consistency reliability of a 56. To increase the

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192 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

reliability of this scale in the present study, a fourth item was added from
the Lodahl and Kejner (1965) job involvement scale (i.e., I live, eat, and
breathe my work). The resulting internal consistency reliability of the mea-
sure in this study was a .69.
The second measure of work salience was one item from Greenhaus et al.
(1989) that assessed career priority (i.e., the relative priority of a persons
career compared to his or her spouses career). Responses were coded such
that 1 My partners career has a much higher priority than my career,
2 My partners career has somewhat of a higher priority than my career,
3 My career has the same priority as my partners career, 4 My
career has somewhat of a higher priority than my partners career, and 5
My career has a much higher priority than my partners career. Therefore,
high scores on both work involvement and career priority indicated high
perceived work salience.
Perceived work schedule flexibility. Perceived work schedule flexibility
was operationally defined as the degree of flexibility one perceives in his or
her work schedule to handle family/personal responsibilities. Respondents
were asked How much flexibility do you have in your work schedule to
handle family/personal responsibilities? Responses were made along a 1 to
4 scale and coded such that 1 no flexibility to 4 a lot of flexibility.
Family involvement. Family involvement was measured using the four
items from the work involvement scale, replacing the word work with
family. Thus, a high score indicated a high level of perceived family
involvement (a .70 in the present study).

Procedure
Participants who were employed by the bank were given two copies of the
survey packets (delivered through interoffice mail) in separate envelopes with
matching codes for each member of the couple. Survey respondents were
instructed to complete the survey independently either at work or at home
and to return it in a sealed envelope to the researchers. Participation in the
study was entirely voluntary and assurances of anonymity were maintained.
A cover letter that explained the voluntary nature of the study was signed
by the executive vice president of human resources and the first author of
the paper.

RESULTS
Descriptive Statistics
The means, standard deviations, and coefficient-alpha reliability estimates
for study variables for males and females can be found in Table 1. Gender
differences in variable means are also indicated in Table 1. Females had
significantly higher levels of WFC than did males. In addition, males indicated
higher levels of family involvement than did females, while there were no

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 193

TABLE 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Coefficient Alpha Reliability Estimates
for Study Variables by Sex

Female Male

Variable Rangea M SD M SD a

Workfamily conflict 15 2.73 .65 2.61 .57** .89

Work involvement 15 2.43 .69 2.45 .74 .69
Family involvement 15 3.66 .74 3.83 .63** .70
Career priority 15 2.55 1.08 3.47 1.04**
Perceived flexibility 14 2.93 .75 3.07 .77*

a
Higher scores indicate higher levels of the construct.
* p .01; **p .001, indicating significant differences between females and males.

significant differences between males and females on work involvement.

Males career priority scores were significantly higher than were females,
indicating that males placed greater priority on their own careers than females
placed on their own careers. Males perceived significantly greater flexibility
in their schedule to manage family responsibilities than did females. Table 2
contains the within-individual and crossover intercorrelations among the study
variables.
Tests of Hypotheses
Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.
Four regression models were computed: (1) the prediction of own WFC for
females, (2) the prediction of own WFC for males, (3) the prediction of
female partners WFC, and (4) the prediction of male partners WFC. In each
analysis, the total number of children living at home was entered in the first
block as a control variable, because this variable has been shown to be a
significant predictor of WFC in previous research (e.g., Goff et al., 1990;
Holahan & Gilbert, 1979). In the next block, the work salience measures of
career priority and work involvement were entered. Perceived work schedule
flexibility was entered in the third block, followed by family involvement in
the fourth block, and WFC in the last block (when predicting partners WFC).
Within-individual effects. Table 3 depicts the results for the prediction of
WFC from females and males own work and family variables. All reported
betas are from the full regression model. The control variable, number of
children, accounted for a significant amount of variance in WFC for both
females and males (i.e., 2 and 3%, respectively). Hypothesis 1 predicted that
there would be a significant positive relationship between work salience and
WFC. Examination of the DR2 for work salience revealed a significant amount
of variance accounted for in WFC for both females and males. Specifically,
work salience accounted for 7% of the variance (p .001) in females WFC,

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 194

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TABLE 2

/
Within-Individual and Crossover Pearson Correlation Coefficients for Study Variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. Workfamily conflict for females .22** .13** .06 0.25** .23** .00 .05 0.05 0.09
2. Work involvement for females 0.24** .21** 0.02 .01 .13** 0.03 0.11* .07
3. Family involvement for females 0.16** .02 .10* 0.05 .17* .13** 0.01

630b$$1557
4. Career priority for females 0.05 0.15** 0.11* .12* 0.61** 0.06
5. Perceived flexibility for females .01 .04 .08 .03 .10*
6. Workfamily conflict for males .19** .04 .14** 0.17**
7. Work involvement for males 0.24** .24** .11*
8. Family involvment for males 0.16** 0.11*
9. Career priority for males .08
10. Perceived flexibility for males
HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

Note. The marital dyad is the unit of analysis (N 399 couples).

03-03-97 07:19:12
* p .05; **p .01.

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 195

TABLE 3
Within-Individual Predictors of WorkFamily Conflict for Females and Males

Females workfamily Males workfamily

conflicta conflictb

Independent variable b R2 DR 2 b R2 DR 2

Number of children .16*** .02 .02** .16* .03 .03***

Work salience .09 .07*** .08 .05***
Career priority .04 .05
Work involvement .28*** .21***
Perceived flexibility 0.24*** .14 .05*** 0.16*** .11 .03***
Family involvement .18*** .17 .03*** 0.07 .12 .00

a
R .41, F(5, 389) 15.69, p .001.
b
R .34, F(5, 391) 10.26, p .001.
*p .05; **p .01; ***p .001.

and accounted for 5% of the variance (p .001) in males WFC. Furthermore,

for both men and women, the b values for career priority were not significant,
while the b values for work involvement were significant (b .28, p .001
for females; b .21, p .001 for males), indicating that higher levels of work
involvement were related to higher levels of WFC. Therefore, Hypothesis 1
was supported, primarily due to the work involvement measure.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that there would be significant negative relationship
between perceived work schedule flexibility and WFC. Perceived work sched-
ule flexibility accounted for 5% of the variance (b 0.24, p .001) in
females WFC, while accounting for 3% of the variance (b 0.16, p
.001) in males WFC. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 was supported, indicating that
higher levels of perceived work schedule flexibility were related to lower
levels of WFC.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that there would be a significant positive relation-
ship between family involvement and WFC. Examination of the DR2 revealed
a significant amount of variance accounted for by family involvement in WFC
for females, but not for males. Specifically, family involvement for females
accounted for 3% of the variance (b .18, p .001) in WFC, indicating
that higher levels of family involvement were related to higher levels of WFC.
Therefore, Hypothesis 3 was only partially supported.
Crossover effects. Table 4 depicts the results of the analyses of crossover
effects. All reported b values are from the full regression model. To test the
hypotheses on crossover effects, for each couple, the females WFC was
regressed onto the males work and family variables, and the males WFC
was regressed onto the females work and family variables. First, the control
variable, number of children living at home, accounted for a significant
amount of variance in females and males WFC (2 and 3%, respectively).

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196 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

TABLE 4
Crossover Effects of Work and Family Variables on Partners WorkFamily Conflict

Female partners work Male partners work

family conflicta family conflictb

Independent variable b R2 DR 2 b R2 DR 2

Number of children .11* .02 .02** .12* .03 .03***

Work salience .02 .00 .05 .02*
Career priority 0.07 0.15**
Work involvement 0.01 .01
Perceived flexibility 0.04 .03 .00 .05 .05 .00
Family involvement 0.01 .03 .00 .04 .06 .01
Workfamily
conflict .22*** .07 .04*** .24*** .11 .05***

a
R .27, F(6, 390) 5.18, p .001.
b
R .33, F(6, 388) 7.67, p .001.
*p .05; **p .01; ***p .001.

Hypothesis 4, that there would be significant positive relationship between

an individuals work salience and their partners level of WFC, failed to
reveal significant effects for males work salience on females WFC; however,
a significant amount of variance was accounted for by females work salience
on males WFC (DR2 2%, p .05). Furthermore, the b for career priority
was significant (b 0.15, p .01), while the b for work involvement was
not significant. This indicates that males WFC was higher when females
placed greater priority on their partners career compared to their own career,
contrary to what was expected.
Perceived flexibility was not significantly related to partners level of WFC
for females or males (Hypothesis 5), nor did family involvement account for
a significant amount of variance in partners level of WFC (Hypothesis 6).
Therefore, neither Hypothesis 5 or 6 was supported.
Hypothesis 7 tested the effects of females and males WFC on their part-
ners levels of WFC. Results revealed that males WFC had significant effects
on females WFC (b .22, p .001), accounting for 4% of the variance.
Furthermore, females WFC had a significant effect on males WFC (b
.24, p .001), accounting for 5% of the variance, supporting Hypothesis 7.
Exploratory post hoc analyses were conducted to assess whether crossover
effects added significantly to the variance already explained in WFC by
within-individual effects. Results revealed that females career priority and
WFC (the two significant predictors of males WFC) accounted for 5% (p
.001) more variance in the males WFC above the within-individual factors.
Males WFC (the one significant predictor of females WFC) added 4% (p
.001) to the explained variance in females WFC above and beyond the
within-individual factors.

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 197

DISCUSSION
Within-Individual Effects
The finding that work salience, specifically work involvement, accounted
for a significant amount of variance in WFC for both males and females
supports previous research on the relationship between work involvement and
WFC (e.g., Frone & Rice, 1987; Greenhaus et al., 1989). It has been suggested
that people with high levels of psychological involvement in their work role
may be more preoccupied with their work and, hence, may devote an excessive
amount of energy to their work role at the expense of their family role,
resulting in WFC (Greenhaus et al., 1989). Furthermore, the career priority
measure did not affect males or females WFC. This finding is contrary to
findings by Greenhaus et al. that career priority was positively related to
females WFC. This is surprising, considering that females in the present
study had slightly higher levels of career priority and similar levels of WFC,
compared to the females in the Greenhaus et al. study. Problems with the
measure of career priority, as mentioned under limitations, may have contrib-
uted to the discrepant results.
The finding that perceived work schedule flexibility accounts for a signifi-
cant amount of variance in WFC is consistent with research on perceived
control and perceived flexibility (e.g., Duxbury, Higgins, & Lee, 1994; Pierce
et al., 1989; Thomas & Ganster, 1995). This study suggests that perceived
control over work schedule reduces WFC, consistent with suggestions by
Pierce et al. (1989). Factors that contribute to this perception are not clearly
understood, however. Thus, further research is needed on the construct of
perceived work schedule flexibility and on the broader construct of flexibility
in the work place.
The finding that family involvement accounted for a significant amount of
variance in WFC for females but not for males is partially consistent with
previous research and theory that has indicated a positive relationship between
family involvement and WFC for both genders (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985;
Greenhaus & Kopelman, 1981). The present studys findings are especially
interesting in light of the mean levels of work and family involvement for
males and females. The mean level of family involvement for males was
significantly higher than the mean family involvement for females (i.e., 3.83
and 3.66, respectively), while the mean level of work involvement was not
significantly different between males and females (i.e., 2.45 and 2.43, respec-
tively).
Furthermore, the findings show significant gender differences with men
reporting lower WFC, higher family involvement, higher career priority, and
higher perceived work schedule flexibility than women. Unfortunately, only
measures of perceived levels of these constructs were used. Research suggests
that measures of behavioral involvement in work and family roles reveal a
different pattern of findings, however. For example, Pleck (1985) and

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198 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

Hochschild (1989) demonstrated that husbands of working wives do not spend

significantly more time in family work compared to husbands of nonworking
wives. Mederer (1993) further discussed the difficulties in measuring family
work by distinguishing task accomplishment from the orchestration, or man-
agement, of the household. Although men are participating more in the task
accomplishment aspect, they do not seem to be taking on much of the overall
management responsibilities (Hochschild, 1989; Mederer, 1993).
The amount of time one spends in a particular role and the amount of
psychological commitment to a role are influenced by a number of factors
including traditional gender role expectations (Duxbury & Higgins, 1991;
Gutek et al., 1991; Hochschild, 1989; Pleck, 1977, 1985). The men in this
study may be participating in family tasks, contrary to traditional gender role
expectations, and, in turn, perceive that they are highly involved in the family
because their role participation is more salient to them (Gutek et al., 1991;
Pleck, 1977). Furthermore, the women in this study may be doing most of
the family tasks and family management, but because the tasks are more
consistent with traditional role expectations, they may not report levels of
involvement in the family role that are comparable to that of their male
partners (Gutek et al., 1991). The studys findings of greater perceived WFC
for females compared to that for males suggest that the women are having
more difficulty in juggling the multiple demands of work and family than are
their male partners, consistent with previous research on WFC (Gutek et al.,
1991; Hochschild, 1989). Some suggest that higher levels of WFC correspond
to greater amounts of time devoted to the work and family roles (Greenhaus &
Beutell, 1985; Gutek et al., 1991). This rational view (Gutek et al.) would
support the present findings that although men reported higher psychological
involvement in the family role, women may have been spending more time
in the family role, while spending approximately the same amount of time
in the work role (i.e., 41 vs. 46 average hours per week for females and
males, respectively), resulting in higher WFC and lower family involvement,
compared to that for men.
Finally, the finding of greater perceived work schedule flexibility for men
compared to women is puzzling, and contrary to previous research (Greenhaus
et al., 1989). Future studies on dual-earner couples need for, use of, and
perceptions of family supportive programs in the work place are needed.
Crossover Effects
The most notable contribution of the present study was the examination of
the effects of males and females work and family variables on their partners
WFC. Consistent with theory and research, it was expected that a partners
degree of involvement in work and family activities, and a partners level of
WFC would affect the amount of stress, or WFC, the other partner experiences
(Parasuraman et al., 1992; Yogev & Brett, 1985).
Although males work salience, perceived flexibility of work schedule, and

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 199

family involvement did not have significant effects on females WFC, fe-
males work salience was a significant predictor of males WFC. Females
perceived flexibility of work schedule and family involvement were not sig-
nificant predictors of males WFC, however. Specifically, WFC was higher
for males when their female partners placed more priority on the male part-
ners career than on their own career. Perhaps for males, knowing that their
career was given priority over their partners career caused increased pressure
to perform in that career. Furthermore, these same males indicated having
higher levels of family involvement than did the females. It should be noted,
however, that the amount of variance accounted for in males WFC by fe-
males career priority (i.e., 2%), although statistically significant, may not be
practically significant.
The most interesting findings of the present study were those of WFC
having strong crossover effects for both males and females, indicating that
an individuals level of WFC was a significant predictor of their partners
level of WFC. In fact, partners WFC accounted for more variance in WFC
than did the other crossover effects studied (i.e., work salience, perceived
work schedule flexibility, and family involvement). Furthermore, these results
demonstrated that for males, crossover effects from their partners work and
family variables accounted for almost as much variance in WFC as did the
within-individual effects (i.e., 11 and 12%, respectively). For females, cross-
over effects from their partners work and family variables accounted for 7%
of the variance in WFC, compared to 17% of the variance in WFC accounted
for by within-individual effects. These crossover findings are both statistically
and practically significant, considering that much of the research on WFC
has only focused on within-individual effects.
Post hoc exploratory analyses demonstrated that crossover effects added
explanatory variance in partners WFC above and beyond the within-individ-
ual effects. In fact, the additional variance explained (i.e., 5% in males WFC
and 4% in females WFC) suggests that even studies with a primary focus
on within-individual predictors of WFC can be enhanced by studying the
crossover effects. These results further strengthen the argument that research-
ers should examine the crossover effects of work and family variables within
the family system to better understand the factors that contribute to WFC.
Limitations and Future Research
Although the present study revealed important information on dual-career
families, it had a 50% response rate for bank employees and less than that
for spouses/partners. This response rate raises questions concerning the char-
acteristics of those individuals who did not respond to the survey. For exam-
ple, perhaps those with the greatest stressors did not respond because they
were experiencing too many demands and pressures at work or at home and
could not take the time to fill out the survey. Hochschild (1989) found that
dual-career couples who were experiencing a lot of strain from their work

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200 HAMMER, ALLEN, AND GRIGSBY

family lives were the very people who could not take the time to be inter-
viewed. If this were the case, it would suggest that our results would be
weakened due to restricted variance in the study variables.
Furthermore, all respondents were either bank employees or in a relation-
ship with a bank employee. Thus, generalizations to other groups of employees
in various careers may be limited. This is consistent with research findings
of occupational differences in the relationship between role stressors and WFC
(Bacharach & Bamberger, 1992). Additionally, couples who participated in
the study were all male/female couples whose average age was 41, and 92%
of the couples were Caucasian. Similar investigations with culturally diverse
couples, including gay and lesbian couples (e.g., Shachar & Gilbert, 1983),
are needed.
It should also be noted that the present findings are specific to dual-earner
couples similar to the ones who participated in the study. These couples
worked an average of 41 (females) and 46 (males) hours per week and held
a mixture of professional and nonprofessional jobs. They also spent an average
of 9 years in these jobs. These findings would suggest that there was a
combination of dual-career and dual-earner couples in the sample. Therefore,
we chose to use the more generic descriptor of dual-earner rather than dual-
career. Future research should include measures such as career commitment
and occupational level to enhance understanding of the differences between
the dual-earner and dual-career couples (e.g., Gilbert & Rachlin, 1987).
There are also limitations due to the reliance on self-report, subjective,
cross-sectional data. Future research should use methods such as experience
sampling (Williams & Alliger, 1994) to better understand the dynamics of
WFC within dual-earner couples. Further, the differences in subjective mea-
sures of work and family involvement and objective measures of such involve-
ment are important to consider. For example, in the present study although
men reported higher perceived family involvement compared to women, re-
search has demonstrated that the actual amount of time that women spend
on family-related tasks is far greater than the time that men spend on such
tasks (e.g., Dancer & Gilbert, 1993; Hochschild, 1989; Pleck, 1985). Thus,
higher scores on such measures reflect the perception of greater involvement,
not necessarily the actual behavioral commitment of the respondents. Further-
more, the measure of career priority may be a function of traditional gender
role expectations about which career should be given priority in a relationship.
This measure assesses the relative priority of ones career compared to his
or her partners career, and thus may not be comparable across respondents
or samples.
In addition to the limitations noted above, the effects sizes in the present
study were moderate, at best, compared to previous research (e.g., Greenhaus
et al., 1989), leaving a significant percentage of variance in WFC unexplained.
This suggests that other factors need to be investigated. As mentioned above,
behavioral measures of involvement may add to the variance explained in

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 WORKFAMILY CONFLICT 201

WFC by crossover effects of work and family variables. Furthermore, previ-

ous research has found that such factors as work stressors and task characteris-
tics (e.g., Greenhaus et al., 1989) and family role stressors (Frone et al., 1992)
are significant predictors of individual WFC. In addition, future studies should
obtain information on the allocation of resources, such as the amount of
outside help a couple has with dependent care and housework, as well as
information on child care responsibilities, and elder and disabled care respon-
sibilities. Social support from the family, as well as organizational support
factors, should be examined when studying crossover effects on WFC.
Therefore, future research should seek to understand additional factors that
account for a significant amount of variance in the crossover effects of part-
ners work and family variables on individuals WFC using the couple as the
unit of analysis. These studies should use longitudinal designs with both
objective (including task accomplishment and household management;
Hochschild, 1989; Mederer, 1993) and subjective measures that are common
to both partners in dual-earner couples.

CONCLUSION
The present study examined the within-individual and crossover effects of
work and family variables and WFC among dual-earner couples. Results from
analyses on within-individual effects of work and family variables on WFC
were, for the most part, consistent with previous research. Results from analy-
ses on crossover effects of work and family variables on a partners level of
WFC were the main focus of the present study and extend research and
understanding in the area of WFC and dual-earner couples.
Organizations need to deal more effectively with the ever-changing work
force by attempting to understand and anticipate adjustments needed in work
roles, family roles, and organizational structures that support workers abilities
to adapt to these changes. Social and political changes in organizations should
also include attention to dual-earner couples who carry their own specific set
of needs. Those companies that make adjustments to their policies and allow
workers more flexibility in their work and family roles may enable a culture
to develop that is more supportive of the majority of the workers who are
now in dual-earner relationships.

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Received: November 30, 1995

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