Employmentweb_low

eMployMent relations and health inequalities: pathways and MechanisMs
Case study 42. Work-family interference as a determinant of sick leave in Dutch university employees. - nathalie
donders
emancipation waves in the second half of the twentieth century have led to considerable increases in the
participation of women in the dutch labour force (bekker, gjerdingen, Mcgovern, & lundberg, 1999). as women’s
share of paid employment rose, their share of unpaid work fell. this is, nevertheless, primarily because women devote
less time to (unpaid) domestic work and not because men are making greater efforts at home. women are often
presumed to be suffering from a “double burden”: having job responsibilities away from home while remaining
responsible for domestic activities, including child care.
Much research has been conducted on the relationships between work and care and various health outcomes,
but very little attention has been paid to sick leave as an outcome measure. sick leave imposes considerable direct
and indirect costs on employers and society, and in order to take preventive measures, it is necessary to investigate
and understand the determinants of sick leave in both men and women.
we conducted a study on the role of work-family interference in explaining sick leave for university employees
(donders, 2005). work-family interference (wFi) is defined as “a form of interrole conflict in which the role pressures
from the work and family domains are mutually incompatible in some respect” (greenhaus & beutell, 1985). two
directions can be distinguished: work can interfere with family life (w>Fi) and family life can interfere with work (F>wi)
(Frone, russell, & couper, 1992).
our questionnaire data (n=1843; response rate: 49.1%) showed the “traditional” inequities in the distribution of
working hours, child-care tasks, and household chores: men were working longer hours outside the home while women
were spending more time than their spouses taking care of the children and the home. Men’s and women’s complaints
at work differed. Men reported higher work pressure and more role conflict than the women. women, on the other hand,
reported unpleasant treatment and less favorable conditions for work variety, use of professional skills, communication,
employment terms, career opportunities, possibilities for learning, decision latitude and autonomy. women also
reported more fatigue, emotional exhaustion, perceived health complaints and took more sick leaves.
we also investigated differences in the strength of the associations. Men showed significantly stronger
associations between work pressure and satisfaction with employment terms and w>Fi, whereas the association
between the age of the youngest child and F>wi was significantly stronger for women than it was for men.
sick leave was most often taken due to perceived health complaints, presence of chronic disease and a life event
in the private domain. For both sexes, w>Fi had a strong effect on fatigue, emotional exhaustion and perceived health
complaints, and an indirect effect (through perceived health complaints) on sick leave. unexpectedly, F>wi played a
far less important role than w>Fi. having childcare arrangements was associated with more sick leaves, especially
for women (women are probably responsible for making childcare arrangements, and this may require a lot of
energy). a work-related life event contributed to the explanation of sick leave in the men, whereas perceived support
from the children seemed to protect the women from sick leave.
we concluded that there were considerable sex differences in the associations of work- or family-related
antecedents (w>Fi, F>wi) with ill health. our population consisted of employees at a university and was therefore a
rather specific group, so it is possible that university employees differ from the general population in ways that affect
associations between the variables investigated in this study. however, more and more jobs with high physical
demands are being replaced by jobs that chiefly involve mental demands and higher levels of autonomy. thus, there
will be increasingly more workers who are comparable with our respondents.
References
bekker, M., gjerdingen, d., Mcgovern, p., & lundberg, u. (1999). Multiple roles: health protection or health risk in a. Kolk,
M. bekker & K. van vliet (eds.), Advances in women and health research. Toward gender-sensitive strategies. tilburg:
tilburg university press.
donders, n. c. g. M. (2005). Psychosocial workload, work-family interference and health. Determinants of sick leave in university
employees. nijmegen: radboud universiteit nijmegen.
Frone, M. r., russell, M., & cooper, M. l. (1992). antecedents and outcomes of work-family conflict: testing a model of the
work-family interface. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(1), 65-78
greenhaus, J. h., & beutell, n. J. (1985). sources and conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management
Review, 10(1), 76-88
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