Work-Family Conflict, Coping Strategies and Burnout: A Gender and Couple Analysis

Abstract

Despite the amount of research on family-work conflict and burnout, there persist questions about their relations and which coping strategies are the most effective. In this paper we address this issue from a gender perspective with a sample of 131 dual-earner couples developing both individual and couple analyses. The results at individual level yield gender differences when each of the two burnout components is explained. The main predictor of emotional exhaustion is work-family conflict while family-work conflict is the main predictor of depersonalization, especially for men. Regarding coping strategies, behavioural coping is negatively related to male depersonalization. However, behavioral and emotional coping increases both burnout dimensions in women, particularly if family-work conflict is high. At couple level, findings confirm the relationship between conflicts and burnout and the moderating role of behavioural coping to explain emotional exhaustion.

Keywords

• work-family conflict
• coping
• burnout
• gender differences
• individual and couple level analysis