Peer-reviewed article
Workaholism, Work Engagement and Child Well-Being: A Test of the Spillover-Crossover Model
Akihito Shimazu, Arnold B. Bakker, Evangelia Demerouti, Takeo Fujiwara, Noboru Iwata et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study looked at how working parents' attitudes to work are linked to their pre-school child's emotional and behavioural problems. It surveyed 208 Japanese dual-earner families at one point in time. Parents who were workaholic reported more conflict between work and family and were less happy. Parents who were engaged in their work reported that work helped family life and were happier. Happier parents had children with fewer emotional and behavioural problems.
Key points
- Workaholism was positively related to work-to-family conflict, which was negatively related to parental happiness, for both fathers and mothers.
- Work engagement was positively related to work-to-family facilitation, which was positively related to happiness.
- Fathers' and mothers' happiness were each negatively related to their child's emotional and behavioural problems.
- Parents' workaholism and work engagement were related to child problems in opposite ways, through spillover and happiness.
- The authors suggest that reducing workaholism and increasing work engagement may lower children's emotional and behavioural problems.
Limitations
The cross-sectional survey design cannot show that parents' work attitudes cause changes in child well-being. It covers only Japanese dual-earner couples with pre-school children (208 families), so it may not apply to other settings. The abstract also does not say who reported the child outcomes or how.
Abstract
This study examines how working parents' work attitudes (i.e., workaholism and work engagement) are associated with their child's psychological well-being. Based on the Spillover-Crossover model (SCM), we hypothesize that (a) work-to-family spillover (i.e., work-to-family conflict and facilitation) and (b) employee happiness will sequentially mediate the relationship between parents' work attitudes and their child's emotional and behavioral problems. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among Japanese dual-earner couples with pre-school child(ren). On the basis of valid data from 208 families, the hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling. For both fathers and mothers simultaneously, workaholism was positively related to work-to-family conflict, which, in turn, was negatively related to happiness. In contrast, work engagement was positively related to work-to-family facilitation, which, in turn, was positively related to happiness. Fathers' and mothers' happiness, in turn, were negatively related to their child's emotional and behavioral problems. Results suggest that parents' workaholism and work engagement are related to their child's emotional and behavioral problems in opposite ways, whereby parents' spillover and happiness mediate this relationship. These findings support the SCM and suggest that decreasing workaholism and improving work engagement may not only improve employees' happiness, but also decrease their child's emotional and behavioral problems.