Authors:	Walter, Johanna
Title:	Benefits and drawbacks of dual-earner couples’ work-related experiences during leisure time
Online publication date:	16-Mar-2023
Year of first publication:	2023
Language:	english
Abstract:	Dual-earner couples need to juggle the demands of both work and home so that it is particularly important that they use their leisure time to recover and replenish drained resources. While previous research has indicated that segmenting work and home is beneficial to employees’ recovery and well-being, this dissertation points out benefits and drawbacks of high work-home integration by examining the well-being consequences of work-related experiences during leisure time for both partners in dual-earner couples. More specifically, in the three studies consequences of work-related spousal support, work reflection and sharing work events are assessed. By using a dyadic perspective in all three studies, this dissertation closes the gap that research on dual-earner couples’ recovery and well-being has rarely included data of both partners for investigating work-related experiences during leisure time. Study 1 focused on work-related support from the partner as work-home integration strategy to recover from work. Cross-sectional data from 130 dual-earner couples (260 individuals) was used to examine the associations between receiving (providing) work-related support from (to) the partner and recovery experiences (i.e., psychological detachment, relaxation, mastery). Moreover, couples’ work-linkage (i.e., both partners working in the same organization and/or the same occupation) was investigated as a moderator. The actor-partner interdependence model was used to account for the dependent structure of dyadic data. Results of multiple group analyses comparing work-linked to non-work-linked couples showed that receiving work-related support from a partner was associated with increased relaxation and mastery experiences, at least among work-linked couples. Work-related support was not associated with employees’ detachment. Providing work-related support was positively related to employees’ mastery experiences in non-work-linked couples only whereas it was unrelated to psychological detachment and relaxation both in couples with and without work-linkage. In study 2, it was examined whether employees’ positive and negative work reflection during off-job time are associated with their own and with their partners’ work engagement and exhaustion. Furthermore, it was investigated whether (a) living with children and (b) being work-linked moderated these relations. To analyze dyadic data of 130 German heterosexual dual-earner couples (260 individuals), multilevel analyses using the actor–partner interdependence model were estimated. Positive associations between employees’ positive work reflection and both their own and their partners’ work engagement were found. Employees’ positive work reflection was also associated with their decreased exhaustion. Employees’ negative work reflection was negatively associated with their own work engagement and positively associated with their own exhaustion but unrelated to their partners’ outcomes. Moderator analyses revealed that living with children weakened the link between employees’ positive work reflection and their own work engagement and strengthened the link between their negative work reflection and exhaustion. In study 3, daily consequences of sharing positive and negative work events with the partner at home both for employees’ and their partners’ affect and work-related self-esteem were investigated. Over the course of a work week, 73 heterosexual dual-earner couples (146 individuals) filled in online questionnaires after work and at bedtime. Dyadic multilevel analyses showed that regarding affect, sharing positive work events was positively associated with employees’ positive affect but not with partners’ positive affect. Sharing negative work events was both unrelated to employees’ and partners’ negative effect. Sharing positive work events was not associated with employees’ self-esteem but negatively associated with partners’ self-esteem. Sharing negative work events was negatively related to both employees’ and partners’ self-esteem. Taken together, the three studies of this dissertation showed that work-related experiences during leisure time (i.e., providing and receiving work-related support, work reflection, sharing work events) have differential consequences for both employees’ and their partners’ well-being and that it is meaningful to distinguish between different work-related experiences (e.g., work-related thinking vs. interaction with the partners) and their valence (positive vs. negative). By combining research on recovery and well-being with research on crossover, this dissertation confirmed that for dual-earner couples, it adds value to analyze couple data (i.e., responses of both partners in a couple) and emphasizes that it is important to consider the potentially differential consequences for both partners’ well-being.
DDC:	150 Psychologie 150 Psychology
Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Department:	FB 02 Sozialwiss., Medien u. Sport
Place:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-8881
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hebis:77-openscience-c88bb7fb-293d-4b51-ae55-0ae941e924989
Version:	Original work
Publication type:	Dissertation
License:	In Copyright
Information on rights of use:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Extent:	166 Seiten ; Illustrationen, Diagramme
Appears in collections:	JGU-Publikationen