Effect of psychosocial safety climate on work-family conflict and psychological health among working couples

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Abstract

BACKGROUND

Research within the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) theory framework has predominantly focused on establishing connections between workplace characteristics and employees' psychological health and well-being.1 Work-related factors, signifying pathways to health impairment, demonstrate how job demands influence strain and adversely affect psychological health.2 Building upon this perspective, we posit that psychosocial safety climate (PSC) could alter the pathways through which work demands affect psychological health, reversing the direction of erosion. PSC represents a scenario where the organization implements policies, practices, and procedures aimed at safeguarding the mental health and behavioral practices of its employees.3 While, job demands are defined as “those organizational, social, or physical aspects of the job that are associated with certain physiological and psychological costs because they require sustained physical or mental effort.4 Thereby, the purpose of this suggested framework is to investigate the relationship between work-family conflict (WFC) and depression symptoms in married individuals who are employed by integrating PSC into the JD-R model.

Numerous studies have shown that PSC precedes job characteristics such as job demands, and these factors impact the health and work performance of employees.5-7 Moreover, numerous investigations have endeavored to examine the moderating function of PSC in the relationship between job demands and mental well-being.8,9 For example, a study by Zadow et al.10 discovered that low workplace PSC raised Australian workers' chance of experiencing depressive symptoms. To date, previous research has demonstrated that PSC serves as a macro-level resource and a protective signal for employees, functioning to mitigate the psychological health impacts induced by job demands.

Nevertheless, many earlier studies related to PSC have investigated how job demands impact personal psychological health, but they have not explored the effects on the relationship between work and family (Specifically the work-family conflict). When an individual struggles to balance competing responsibilities, such as job and family, it can lead to WFC.11 Therefore, while previous studies have focused on PSC's impact on individual psychological health, our current study explores its effect on work and family roles in both working husbands and wives. Therefore, this study suggests:

H1: PSC negatively moderates the relationship between job demands and the WFC of teachers.

H2: PSC negatively moderates the relationship between job demands and the WFC of spouse.

Nowadays, WFC has become widespread, particularly among couples where both the husband and wife are employed. WFC is a situation of inter-role conflict when this negative experience spillover from work to the family domain.12,13 As individuals allocate more hours to work, they find themselves with less time to dedicate to family matters. Moreover, individuals must exert additional energy to meet the demands of their work, which results in energy exhaustion while with the family at home. Similarly, family-work conflict (FWC) is characterized as a form of inter-role conflict, where adverse family-related experiences impact the work environment, as defined by Miller et al.14. For instance, an individual who needs to fulfill a lot of family responsibilities must feel exhausted to concentrate on work when at the workplace. Hence, when work and family responsibilities are not in harmony with one another, circumstances such as WFC and FWC exacerbate the tension between them.

Recent research has discovered that working spouses frequently encounter role conflicts between their work obligations and family responsibilities.15,16 A study by Matei and Virga17 discovered that a wife’s WFC leads to a husband’s negative psychological health behavior through her husband’s WFC. This study showed that husband must took over wife’s household responsibilities when wife was unable to manage commitment between work (at the workplace) and family (at home). Hence, husband's WFC rises as a result of this circumstance, which also affects his psychological health. Another study by Wan et al.18 indicated that job and family stressor increase WFC and FWC among working couples. The conflict roles may affect each other’s responsibilities which results in experiencing stress and other’s psychological health problem. According to Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, spouses complement each other to support their household roles.19 As working partners play a crucial role at work, he/she must be exhausted to involve in the family domain. On the other way around, the spouse must give more attention to household responsibilities that lead to his/her own FWC, which in turn triggers the level of depressive symptoms.

Moreover, recent research predominantly examines the influence of PSC on employees' personal psychological health,20,21 such as its impact within the workplace. Therefore, this study aims to address a gap in the literature by exploring how the "crossover" mechanism indirectly affects the psychological health of spouses through the influence of PSC. Drawing on the foundational premise of the crossover theory and utilizing the actor-partner interdependence model,22 individuals are analyzed within dyadic relationships, which constitute the primary unit of analysis. In the present study, PSC was integrated within both the JD-R and crossover models. PSC precedes WFC, thereby one person's independent variable (e.g., work-family conflict) has the potential to influence both their own and their partner's dependent variable. (e.g., depressive symptoms level).

Therefore, we are interested to examine an individual’s WFC cross-over to a spouse’s depressive symptoms through a spouse’s FWC. Thus, we predict that:

H3: Teacher’s WFC leads to the spouse’s depressive symptoms through the mediation of the spouse’s FWC.

H4: Spouse’s WFC leads to the teacher’s depressive symptoms through the mediation of the teacher’s FWC.

METHODS

Statistical analysis

To ensure the validity of the instruments employed, we initiated confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tests. We used five fit indices, including the chi-square statistic (χ²), the goodness-of-fit index (GFI), the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker–Lewis index (TLI), and the root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA). Following the guidelines of Hooper et al.,32 GFI, CFI, and TLI values should exceed 0.90, while the RMSEA value should be 0.09 or lower.

Second, Using the AMOS program, we used structural equation modeling to examine the mediation process. To evaluate our hypotheses, following Mackinnon’s33 recommendations, we conducted the mediation process. According to the mediation model, FWC (X→M→Y/Paths a & b) and WFC (X→Y/Path c) both directly and indirectly predict depressed symptoms. Remember that partial mediation is indicated if there is considerable mediation and the c' coefficient is still statistically significant.34 On the other hand, full mediation is supported if there is significant mediation and the c' coefficient no longer has significance.34 The results as shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Test for mediation using a bootstrap analysis with 90% confidence interval

Third, we employed SPSS version 25 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) for analyzing the interaction effect. Hierarchical regression analysis results are presented in Table 4. To examine the interaction effect of PSC (as shown in Table 4), we included the product term between job demands and PSC in our direct effect model of WFC and job demands (following Step 2). In our regression analysis of the direct effect model for Time-based conflict (following Step 2), we incorporated the interaction product term between cognitive demands and PSC. To explore the impact on Strain-based and Behavior-based conflict, we followed a similar testing process as previously described, replacing cognitive demands with emotional and physical demands. Following Dawson’s guidance,35 we plotted moderating effects and interaction patterns using simple slope tests (Figs. 2–6). Our approach adhered to Cohen et al.’s proposal36 by standardized beta value.

Table 4.

Results of regression and interaction analysis between job demands, PSC and work-family conflict

Fig. 2.

Interaction effect of physical demand and psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on work-family conflict (behavior-based).

RESULTS

Confirmatory factor analysis

We conducted CFA to assess the empirical distinctiveness of the study variables. For both the women’s and spouse’s samples, the three-factor, six-factor, four-factor, and five-factor models exhibited a good-fit indices, as shown in Table 2. Based on the CFA results for both women and men samples (Table 2), the five-factor model demonstrated the best fit. Specifically, for women, the goodness-of-fit indices were as follows: GFI = 0.915, CFI = 0.918, TLI = 0.908, RMSEA = 0.059, and chi-square divided by the df value (CMIN/df) = 1.821. For men, the corresponding indices were GFI = 0.910, CFI = 0.908, TLI = 0.910, RMSEA = 0.058, and CMIN/df = 1.780. These findings support the distinctiveness of all measurements. Additionally, the path diagram of the models is presented in the Appendix section (Figs. 7–10).

Table 2.

Confirmatory factor analysis test for measurement models

Main effects

The first hypothesis (H1) proposed that PSC would be shown to have a moderating influence on the relationship between WFC and job demands among women teachers. The results of the study showed that PSC moderates the relationship between job demands and WFC. However, several results indicated that PSC did not moderate the association between job demands and WFC. The details of results are mentioned in Table 4. Thus, H1 was partially supported.

For men samples (spouse), in line with hypothesis two (H2), we postulated that PSC would mitigate the relationship between WFC and job demands on the spouse. In contrast to women samples, we only found one interaction effect for men samples (Table 4). Therefore, H2 was not fully supported.

For women samples (Teacher), in hypothesis three (H3), the prediction was that men’s FWC would act as a mediator in the relationship between women's WFC and men’s depressive symptoms. Based on the results in Table 3, since the direct relationship between men's depressed symptoms and women's WFC was shown to be non-significant, the direct mediation effect would be apparent. Thus, the full mediation occurred for men’s FWC that related to strain. But the analysis showed that no mediation effect was found for both time’s WFC and behavior’s WFC of women to men’s depressive symptoms via men’s FWC. Hence, H3 was partially supported.

For men samples (Spouse), as per hypothesis four (H4), our expectation was that women's FWC would mediate the relationship between men's WFC and women's depressive symptoms. As reported in Table 3, the direct relationship between men's WFC and women's depressive symptoms became statistically insignificant when women's FWC was taken into account as a mediator. Hence, for women's time-based FWC, comprehensive mediation was noted. Similarly, the study showed that the relationship between men's WFC and women's depressive symptoms was mediated by women's behavior-based FWC. However, even with women's FWC included as a mediator, there is still a significant direct link between men's WFC and women's depressed symptoms. Therefore, partial mediation occurred for women’s FWC that related to behavior. Overall, H4 was partially supported.

According to the interaction pattern illustrated, PSC mitigated the negative relationship between high physical demands and behavior-based WFC (Fig. 2) and strain-based WFC (Fig. 5) among female teachers compared to those experiencing low physical demands. Additionally, high PSC alleviates the impact of high cognitive demands on strain-based WFC more effectively than low PSC (Fig. 4). This indicates that PSC is effective in reducing the impact of experiencing physical demand and cognitive demands on teachers. Our research revealed that high emotional demand combined with high PSC increases time-based WFC compared to low PSC (Fig. 3). This suggests that PSC cannot mitigate the effects of high emotional demand on time-based WFC among women.

Fig. 5.

Interaction effect of physical demand and psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on work-family conflict (strain-based).

Fig. 4.

Interaction effect of cognitive demand and psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on work-family conflict (strain-based).

Fig. 3.

Interaction effect of emotional demand and psychosocial safety climate (PSC) on work-family conflict (time-based).

For the spouse sample, the findings indicate that PSC does not influence the relationship between physical demand and strain-based WFC, as both high and low PSC converge at the same point (Supplementary Fig. 6). This may be because PSC lacks sufficient physical support elements to weaken the impact of physical demand.

DISCUSSION

Prior research has indicated that social support, workplace resources, and job crafting can all mitigate the relationship between job stressors and psychological health issues experienced by individuals who work,37,38 in contract, our current study found that for both working spouses, PSC reduced the relationship between WFC and job demands. The reason behind this has shown that the cognitive demands and physical activity at school would not help women teachers to be more productive at home. However, the existence of PSC such as strong concern from school management about teacher’s health help to reduce the experience of cognitive and physical demand and WFC. For example, a school that provides PSC medium such as sharing opinions about work and practice making suggestions to overcome challenges may reduce the impact of cognitive and physical demand at work, which in turn, avoid teachers experiencing conflict role between work and family. Thus, it would benefit to improve teachers’ productive behavior at home.

Interestingly, our study revealed that high emotional demand and high PSC increase WFC time-based compared to low PSC. Therefore, our study advocate that PSC is unable to buffer the effect of high emotional demand on the WFC of time-based among women. The rationale behind these conditions suggests that individuals may feel emotionally burdened by the rules, practices, and procedures designed to protect the psychological health and safety of employees, which are necessary regulations.

Subsequently, the findings demonstrate that PSC might not affect the association between physical demand and WFC of strain-based, as high or low PSC are reaching the same point (For the spouse sample). The logic reason behind this finding is that PSC might have inadequate elements of physical support to diminish the impact of physical demand. The organization should provide specific physical support that related to the type of occupations which could reduce the experience of physical demand. However, in the current study, we could not specify further as spouse samples are from various types of occupations.

In line with the claim that prior research has established the mediation role of FWC between WFC and psychological well-being,39,40 our study again supported this notion for WFC in related to strain. A study by Grzywacz and Smith41 found that WFC’s husbands lead to wives’ psychological health through FWC’s husbands. A recent study by Vahedi et al.42 showed that WFC can lead to a spouse’s parenting irritability through the spouse’s perception. Interestingly, our study found that WFC teachers influence the spouse’s depressive symptoms through the experience of the spouse’s FWC concerning strain. While, WFC (Time-based) spouse leads to the teacher’s depressive symptoms through the experience of the teacher’s FWC, and WFC (Behaviour-based) spouse leads to the teacher’s depressive symptoms via teachers that experience FWC relating to behavior-based. The logic behind these situations is when an individual is unable to manage his/her family roles, therefore, the spouse must take over the family roles. For example, teachers who felt tired to involve in family responsibilities would need their spouses to take over the responsibilities. However, at the same time, the spouse also needs to manage their own work-family roles. In other words, the spouse must execute a “double role” and due to these circumstances, the level of experiencing depressive symptoms would increase among spouses.

The current findings indicate women teachers experiencing depressive symptoms due to conflicts between their family and work roles. These scenarios could be explained due to collectivist culture in Malaysia. Although women hold professional positions, the collectivist culture in Asia persists, emphasizing traditional gender roles where women are primarily responsible for home and childcare, this trend is evident in Malaysia as well.26 Consequently, the difficulty in balancing work and family responsibilities contributes to poor psychological health.

The results of the current study demonstrated that PSC altered the direction of the relationship between work-related demands, WFC, FWC, and the level of depressive symptom experience. When PSC diminish the effect of work demands on WFC, individuals can do their roles ideally. Meanwhile, spouse would not be physically or emotionally burdened by family-work roles. Overall, as PSC reduce the experience of WFC, indirectly it would reduce the level of spouse’s depressive symptoms when they experience low FWC. PSC is not only useful to diminish WFC/FWC of individuals but spouse psychological health too.

First, the majority of earlier research looked at how PSC affected psychological health and job demands within the framework of an individual's work role.43-45 The scope of PSC has been extended to include the job and family domains by our current study. The results of the current study demonstrate that PSC enhances family roles and helps people participate at work.

Second, while most of the PSC studies focused on the “individual”, but, the current study looked at the “crossover” level. According to the current study, when PSC lessens the tension between work and family responsibilities, it has an indirect effect on a spouse's depression symptoms. This study provides crucial knowledge to the existing literature by determining the factors of PSC that indirectly lead to other’s psychological health. Due to the lack of PSC study in the context of “crossover”, researchers should extend this investigation in the future study to determine how far PSC could influence the well-being spouse.

This study has several limitations. Firstly, its cross-sectional design prevents the establishment of causality. Future research should adopt a longitudinal approach, incorporating several months between the first and second data collection points to enhance validity. Nevertheless, this study utilized multi-source data, including samples from both teachers (wives) and their spouses (husbands), which helps mitigate common method variance issues.46 Secondly our study utilized samples of teachers and their spouses (from various occupations), which allows for generalization to the population of teachers but not to their spouses. Future research should include participants from diverse occupations to broaden the findings and enable generalization to a wider working population.

From a practical standpoint, our research recommends that school management or organizations identify the specific elements of PSC that may diminish specific job demands at work. Emphasizing knowledge about these specific PSC elements (i.e., PSC elements that related to cognitive, emotional, or physical demands) can aid organizations in enhancing procedures, policies, and practices designed to protect teachers’ psychological health. Furthermore, improving PSC elements while considering cultural differences may assist policymakers in developing rules and practices that are relevant to employees. PSC elements that align with work contexts and cultural factors could effectively reduce the impact of job demands and role conflicts.

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

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