Spouse’s Work-to-family Conflict, Family Stressors, and Mental Health among Dual-earner Mothers and Fathers

We examine the association between perceptions of spouse’s work-to-family conflict, family stressors, and mental health outcomes using data from a sample of 1,348 dual-earning parents from a 2011 national survey of Canadian workers. Based on crossover stress theory and the stress process model, we hypothesize that perceptions of spouse’s work-to-family conflict are associated with family stressors, which mediate the association between perceptions of spouse’s work-to-family conflict and respondent’s mental health. Using ordinary least square regression techniques, we find that perceptions of spouse’s work-to-family conflict are associated with mental health outcomes as well as secondary family stressors. Furthermore, the family stressors resulting from perceptions of spouse’s work-to-family conflict facilitate family-to-work conflict among respondents, which further explains the association between perceptions of spouse’s work-to-family conflict and mental health outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of crossover stress and the stress process model.