Bryn Mawr Work and Family Project:

Working Parents’ Emotional Responses to Daily Conflict Between Work and Family Roles

Alexis Bennett

Clinical Developmental Psychology

This study has received generous funding from the Bryn Mawr College Center for Science in Society and the Department of Psychology

As dual-earner families have become the majority among those families with young children, studies that investigate the impact of parents’ work on family dynamics are increasingly important. Research involving working parents suggests that daily work and family experiences play a vital part in determining their psychological well-being and the quality of interactions among family members. The current study utilizes a daily diary approach to examine the extent, daily rhythms, and correlates of work-family conflict for working parents. Participants are Bryn Mawr College alumnae who were undergraduates when a campus-wide survey asking about their future work and family plans was distributed. The current study also included partners/spouses of the Bryn Mawr alumnae. Participants were asked to complete two phases of self-report questionnaires designed to measure overall and day-to-day work-family conflict, emotional well-being, work stress and satisfaction, beliefs about and confidence in the parenting role, and the quality of parent-child interactions. The second phase questionnaire was completed over six “typical” work days, of which five were consecutive. At the present time, data collection is nearly complete. More than 100 families have participated in this research, and preliminary results should be available by December 2003. Findings may have important implications for the impact of daily stressors related to work and family roles on working parents’ emotional and relationship well-being.