The work–family interface in Korea: can family life enrich work life?

Abstract

Using data obtained from 363 Korean civil servants, we examine the mechanism of family-to-work enrichment. Although individualistic Western work–family literature predicts that resources from the family role, both instrumental and affective, will improve the work role by mitigating the negative job stress–job satisfaction relationship, data from collectivistic Korean society show an unexpected opposite effect – an accentuating, not a mitigating moderating effect. Family resources – especially affective resources – may function as an additional work stressor rather than enrich the work role under collectivists' weak identity separation between work and family roles. This study thus reveals the cultural biases in the extant Western work–family literature by showing that the cultural variance in role identity separation/integration may underlie the mechanism of family-to-work enrichment.