Work–life conflict and burnout among working women: a mediated moderated model of support and resilience

Abstract

Purpose

Using job demand-control-support (JDCS) model as its foundation, the purpose of this paper is to examine the important, but under-explored, relationship between perceptions of work–life conflict and burnout being mediated and moderated by support systems and resilience among female employees in India.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 270 female employees belonging to various sectors such as Information Technology/ Information Technology enabled services, retail, bank and hospitality located in Northern India were surveyed. The study used stratified sampling method for good coverage from different departments of the organizations. The structural equation method was used to test the direct effect, and for the mediation effects, they were tested by the method of indirect effects (Preacher and Hayes, 2004).

Findings

The results supported the hypothesized model that there exists a significant and positive relationship of work–life conflict with burnout, and work–life conflict has a negative association with both family support and organizational support. The findings also supported the hypothesis that family support and organizational support mediate the relationship of work–life conflict and burnout. This analysis expectedly confirmed that resilience not only displayed a negative relationship with burnout but also exhibited a moderated relationship with organizational and family support.

Research limitations/implications

The research design was co-relational and cross-sectional, so inferring causality is not possible. Future research must incorporate a longitudinal design to investigate the causal effects of work–life conflict on employees’ experiences of burnout and whether it gets buffered by availability of workplace support and family support.

Practical implications

It is imperative for the organizations to take substantial steps to reduce job burden and deadline pressure on the female employees, nurture decision autonomy at all levels of hierarchy and encourage amiable relationships of employees with their supervisors and peers based on mutual trust and support.

Originality/value

Although most of the research studies on work–life conflict have been unidirectional, i.e. investigating spillover of work demands on to family domains (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985; Byrne and Barling, 2017), these conflicts have been found to be bidirectional, meaning thereby that family issues do spill over into work realm (Makela and Suutari, 2011). This study examines both directions of work–life conflict.

Citation

Gupta, P. and Srivastava, S. (2021), "Work–life conflict and burnout among working women: a mediated moderated model of support and resilience", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 629-655. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-12-2019-1993